This meeting was bittersweet as we passed a tremendous milestone but were forced to do it without our founding member Keith Wilkinson. Keith passed away suddenly on January 2, 2023.

Normally our meetings begin with a word from our Platinum Sponsor. This meeting, the sponsor chose to remain anonymous in honour of Keith and instead we made Keith our speaker.

We took a video from Tim Lowing of Lowing Media that was part of a previous promotion. Tim was also able to include an 'outtake' which we thought showed Keith as we all knew him - laughing, joking, and talking about helping the community. The video is below:


This was followed up by a presentation from MP Blake Richards. Blake talked about Keith and what he meant and then posthumously awarded him the Queen Platinum Jubilee Award for invaluable contribution to community growth in Airdrie. Keith's wife Sandra was there to accept and bravely spoke through tears how about proud Keith would have been.

Rest in peace, my man.

Guest Speaker - Peter Brown
Next, Airdrie Mayor Peter Brown spoke. He also talked about how important Keith was to Airdrie - how involved he was, how selfless he was, and how altruistic he was - he did not do it for accolades (something Sandra pointed out as well). Peter also put a challenge to the group to come up with a way that the City could leave a legacy for Keith somewhere in Airdrie. There were lots of ideas floating through the night and we appreciate the commitment of the Mayor to see that recognition through.

A toast was made to Keith and, as he would've wanted, we got down to the business of 100 Airdrie Men Who Give A Damn.

Speaking of business, our sponsors provide tremendous benefit to the group and allow us the assurances that each presenter will leave with something if they do not get the $10,000 vote.

A huge thanks to our Gold sponsors for this meeting:

• Martins Pest Control
• Vitreous Glass

If you have an interest in being a sponsor, visit our sponsor page and connect with Darcy Forbes.


Past winner update:
Brian from 2nd Airdrie Scouts provided an update. They have earmarked money for various programming including Scouter training; Cub Cart rallies; day trips for climbing at U of C, winter camps and more. Brian talked about how important groups like ours are for their survival and I'm happy to say that Brian personally noted that he has signed up to the 100 Airdrie Men for next meeting - a testament to how contagious these meetings can be.


Presentations:
We had three tremendous groups present and all of them knocked it out of the park.

First up was Airdrie Angel.
We heard a brief history of Airdrie Angel - a group of real estate agents that wanted to give back. They deemed it “real estate with a purpose” and made a point to emphasize that they were not a charity nor a not-for-profit - just a grassroots movement trying to give a helping hand to those in difficult circumstances. They've raised over $200,000 in cash and in-kind donations to date!

The bulk of the presentation was a recording of the phone call to their most recent recipient. Lisa's heartbreaking tale of going through the unimaginable experience of losing her son to a rare form of cancer. As heartbreaking as the story was, it was as heartwarming to hear Airdrie Angel's response and how meaningful it was to the family.

If Airdrie Angel won, the money would go to finding and supporting more 'Angels'.


Next was Airdrie Pride Society.
Pride is a non-profit that started in 2017. Rhianne and Kiersten talked about the regular events that Pride puts on including Pride in the Pub, book clubs, board game nights. They noted how important it is to provide events and spaces for those in the community that would like a safe space to congregate and meet others, especially youth. They also hold annual events such as the Pride Festival and Solidarity Walk and were able to put on a very successful Queer Prom for over 130 youth this past year.

Kiersten shared a story of how she spent the first 15 years or so of her life in Airdrie mostly staying inside - afraid of what the community might think or how she might get treated. In 2017, she joined the Pride board and it has allowed her to "find her community without leaving her community".

If awarded, the money would be put toward a scholarship fund in honour of a special member that committed suicide.

Finally, we had Airdrie #LiveLocal.
LiveLocal is familiar to this group. Founder Mike (along with his wife Lori) have been a part of 100 Airdrie Men since the start. Their group is all about selling hoodies (and more merchandise coming in the future) with all proceeds to benefit local initiatives - whether that be charities, non-profits, youth groups, local events, etc. Using a made-to-order approach, there is a Zero Waste policy that helps ensure that they are able to reinvest as much as possible. In fact, 100% of proceeds go back out to the community.

Their generosity was on display when they made the offer to split the $10,000 with the other presenters ($4k to each presenting charity and $2k to LiveLocal). What a generous offer!

We had a very close vote this time around again - two of the groups actually tied - but Airdrie Angel was selected as the recipient for Q1 2023 and were awarded $10,000! However, because of our excellent turnout, our generous sponsors, and a $400 Flames ticket auction (courtesy of Paul Reglin), we had a total of $14,950 to give away, meaning LiveLocal and Airdrie Pride walked away with $2150 as well!

On top of that, the group surpassed $250,000 in total since our inception in October 2017! A quarter of a million dollars!!! Incredible. Keith would've been immeasurably proud of that and we all felt him in the meeting with us.

Thank you to 1861 Local Bar & Grill for hosting - they were super accommodating and worked hard to ensure we had good audio/video for Keith's videos.

Thanks to Geoff Whatley for putting together the slideshow that played as everyone mingled prior to the meeting. That slideshow is below.

We had more incredible door prizes and want to thank our super generous members:

• Tiger Propane
• Sowerby Designs
• David Bowman
• Yeoman Woodworks
• Paul Reglin
• Maaco
• Airdrie Paint and Blinds