Choose your cause: CFC kicks off for 2016

  • Published
  • By Dave Smith
  • 21st Space Wing Public Affairs staff writer
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. --  Helping provide food for the hungry, trained tutors to school children, shelter for troubled youth, wigs for children going through chemotherapy or even a lightweight wheelchair for a physically challenged individual, whatever the choice it can be facilitated through the Combined Federal Campaign.

The 2016 CFC kickoff event for Peterson Air Force Base takes place Oct. 5 from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. at the Peterson Club. The motto for this edition of the campaign is “Choose Your Cause.”

“It’s like a party, if you like,” said Master Sgt. Adam Harms-Colby, co-project lead for the 21st Space Wing campaign. “It’s an opportunity for CFC to bring in charities so they can have a booth where people can meet and talk with someone. It gives a sampling of what people can donate to.”

The event will have a carnival theme with free popcorn, a pie-eating contest and games, including ring toss, and the balloon and dart game. Harms-Colby said when people talk to representatives of the various charities, they receive tickets to play the games. A knockerball – also known as bubble soccer - competition will take place at the PAFB athletic field, with the winners taking on the winners of the Schriever AFB event in a mid-campaign push in November.

“It’s a unique way to get people to engage and involved with CFC,” he said. “It’s a way we can get people excited about it.”

The Combined Federal Campaign is the largest workplace giving campaign in the world, according to the Rocky Mountain CFC website. More than $8 billion has been raised for local, national and international charities. In 2015 the RMCFC raised $3.2 million, one of the top regions in the country, and hopes to beat that this go around.

“We’re always trying to go over what we did before,” Harms-Colby said. “I’d like to make it to $3.5 million. That’s my personal goal and I think it’s doable because we are doing a lot of online giving too.”

To give online, visit www.rockymountaincfc.org and click on the “pledge online” tab. There are options for donating based on the department of employment. Military personnel are asked to know their unit code prior to making an online pledge.

Through the CFC, federal employees may give to any of more than 25,000 charities involved in the campaign.