Starting December 1, if you stroll around quaint, historic Norwich, you’re likely to see lots of people dressed up as snowmen. A few others will resemble characters on Sesame Street. Those costumes are big moneymakers for charity, and so is almost every retail sale in town this month.
The town’s fundraiser, called “The Nineteen Days of Norwich” is the brainchild of Dan Fraser.
His family owns Dan and Whit’s, an eclectic and endearing general store and gathering spot.
Last year, Fraser says, a woman showed up at the store looking downcast because she had just come from The Haven, a nearby food pantry and homeless shelter, and the shelves were almost bare.
"And they had done some small food drives in the neighborhood and it just wasn’t cutting it and it was just really frustrating. And we felt, you know, as a grocery store that sells food, there’s got to be something we could do,” Fraser recalled.
So Dan and Whit’s decided to donate 1 percent of each sale to The Haven, and convinced most of the town’s other retailers to do the same. Sales in this tiny town reached $1 million in 19 days, yielding $10,000 for The Haven. Additional donations racked up another $17,000. Plus, over 12 tons of food was donated to the food pantry.
This year, the cash total will be much larger, because The Byrne Foundation has anted up a $50,000 matching grant. Fraser says that’s getting local officials — including Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcomb — to dress funny.
“So other people can bid to say ‘I would see, you know, a select board member wear a Bert costume for three hours on Saturday,'” he explained.
Food donation sites are also pegged with a bit of humor. For example, since the police get you out of a jam, jam is being collected at the station. Town Hall deals with sticky issues, so leave your peanut butter there. Also, on every one of the nineteen days there’s at least one fundraiser event. Day one, a craft workshop at the school. Day two, a farm tour. Day three, a wine tasting, and so on, until just about every pocket in town has been turned inside out. A $15 donation buys you a snowman or reindeer necklace, which gets you special deals — a free coffee maybe, or, Fraser says, a free pedicure for your dog.
"Just really cool funky things, so the businesses again are just going above and beyond what is expected and it’s just going to be really fantastic and a ton of fun to be in town."
And Fraser says all this do-gooding is good for business, too, because people are coming into Norwich from other places, and avoiding malls, to help the cause.
