Shyanne Belzer/MDN Members of the Minot Optimist Club presented members of the Souris Valley Animal Shelter a large check for $50,000. Over the next five years, the animal shelter will receive a check for $10,000 to go towards their expansion project.

The Minot Optimist Club announced in April the winner of their Big Give campaign. The winner, Souris Valley Animal Shelter, now received a large check for $50,000 to go towards their Capital Campaign to expand their shelter.

Members of the Minot Optimist Club met with members of the Souris Valley Animal Shelter to present the check, commiting to give them $50,000 over the next five years. They will receive $10,000 every year pending project progression.

Terri Philion, President of the Minot Optimist Club, said the Big Give campaign was a new step to make a big impact to the Minot community.

“We probably receive $1000 in funds requests at least monthly,” she said, “We started talking about are we serving our mission giving $200 here, $200 there, or is there something bigger that we could that would really benefit a whole community.”

They decided to hold the Big Give campaign after not being sure who to give funds to out of all the projects taking place in Minot. They decided to give projects a chance to apply to win a prize of $50,000.

By the end, they received 23 applications. With so many projects, they had a hard time cutting it down to three and gave each member three votes to go towards the projects. In the end, it was cut down to Minot Full STEAM Ahead, the Roosevelt Park Zoo Centennial Capital Campaign and the Souris Valley Animal Shelter Capital Campaign.

From there, each project had to give a presentation where they were given points according to specific criteria. At the end of it all, the Souris Valley Animal Shelter was the chosen recipient for the Big Give campaign amount.