Chamber Day
Contributor
We’re off to a good start . . .
In 1988, Chamber Day was created as a way of providing more secure funding for our Chamber. And since that time, we've come back to you annually to ask you to support your Chamber. We hope you'll never need it, but if you do, you'll be glad it's there.
A key component of our fund-raising efforts, especially the past few years, has been the Chamber Challenge. We “challenge” you to give a straight donation to our Chamber, and we hope you will then turn around and challenge your friends and dive buddies to match your generosity. And I’m happy to tell you that we’re already almost at $13,000!!! Good job right out of the gate!!!
We start off with a wonderful Platinum-level $5,000 donation in memory of Dr. Jeff Sipsey, our longtime chief doctor and just an all-around good guy, who died a few years ago. Interestingly, Jeff wasn’t a diver himself and didn’t quite understand the allure of being underwater, but he was very interested to helping ferret out solutions for the maladies that befell divers. He is missed but his contributions to the knowledge needed to run our Chamber and help divers remains.
At the Gold level, we have a quartet of donors starting with someone who’s also a volunteer crew member of our Chamber, Stuart Berryhill. Not only does he donate his time to the facility, but he’s also willing to donate his money. He’s followed by two dives shops, Pacific Wilderness in San Pedro and Eco Dive Center in Culver City. Pacific Wilderness annually likes to be the first store out of the box and Eco Dive Center is not only our largest Chamber Eve table sponsor (four tables) but also supports the Challenge as well.
Rounding out the foursome is a donation in memory of Deanne King from her husband Gary. Gary’s generosity is a reminder that your donation can be tagged in someone’s memory or honor. Deanne loved diving and especially diving with her camera and Gary’s donation will keep her name and memory in front of all of us for quite some time.
“In memory of” donations don’t have to be a specified dollar amount as you can see from our second one this go-round, a Silver-level donation from Chamber Director Karl Huggins in memory of two of the mentors in his life, Dr. Lee Somers as well as Lou Prieskorn.
Joining Karl as Silver-level donors ($500) are longtime contributors Roger Carlson and Doug Lada. Also on this level is Gina Boster, who last year was a Bronze $100 donor, but this year has moved up to Silver. Thank you all.
Rounding things out are six donations at the Bronze level, including one in memory of Leon Slavin, a wonderful many who touched many lives with his stories and good nature.
So we’re off and running. And these initial 15 donations really run the gamut of the type of support that our Chamber gets from you, the diving community. We know things are still a bit tough out there with the economy and the aftermath of the fires to deal with. But we hope that you’ll be able to think of what it means to have our Chamber available 24/7/365 and give whatever you can. We’ve got a long ways to go until May 7 but we will get there with your help.
So who’s next??? Here’s the direct link to the donation page: https://usc.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_88ko1OUej3lAYbI
CHALLENGE 2025 - $12,950 total (Updated 3/5/2024 @ 7PM - first update)
New donors are in bold type and marked with an asterisk.
Platinum ($5,000-9,999)
* In memory of Dr. Jeff Sipsey (anonymous)
Gold ($1,000-4,999)
* Stuart Berryhill
* Pacific Wilderness
* Eco Dive Center
* In memory of Deanne King (Gary King)
Silver ($500-999)
* In memory of Dr. Lee Somers and Lou Prieskorn (Karl Huggins)
* Doug Lada
* Roger Carlson
* Gina Boster
Bronze ($100-499)
* In memory of Leon Slavin (Henry Gittler & Lisette Lieberman)
* Tabby Stone & Linda Takvorian
* Mark Perlstein
* Debbie Miller
* Lynn Dodd
* Chris Loos
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