Representatives of the organizations that donated gather around to take a group photo at the end of the event. All-in-all, the organizations managed to raise exactly $186,899 in only 24 hours. PJ photo by Carly Gould

LAKEWOOD — Because of the numerous donors, the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation managed to raise over $186,000 for more than 90 different nonprofit organizations.

The Give Big CHQ event itself was held June 13 and was an online donation event.

An event was held at the Southern Tier Brewing Company on Thursday, thanking the donors and awarding prizes to those who donated the most. This is the second year that the foundation has held this event.

“Over $25,000 worth of prizes were donated this year,” said Sarah Shelters, the communications officer of the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation. “And we hold this big thank-you event just to show our gratitude for everyone who donated.”

Out of the 97 organizations that donated, over half received prizes at the ceremony. The Roger Tory Peterson Institute received the award for donating the most money during the event — a grand total of $12,480. Heritage won the prize for having the most individual donors, influencing 105 people to donate to the cause.

The prizes and organizations were split into different categories and sizes for the companies — large, medium and small. The categories for prizes included the most dollars raised, most unique donors, the Power Hour prizes, and Golden Ticket prizes. There was also a “Happy Birthday” prize for celebrating the second year of the event, with ten randomly chosen organizations receiving the prize.

“The Hashtag Spirit Award is a prize awarded randomly to organizations who used the hashtag (#GiveBigCHQ) during the event,” Shelters said. “While the Most Creative Social Media Award was given to organizations with the most creative Facebook or Instagram pages for the event.”

“Chautauqua Region Community Foundation would like to thank the 1,645 donors and 97 organizations who donated during the Give Big CHQ 24 hour event,” Shelters said.

Prize donors included Weber Knapp, Southern Tier Brewing Company, Allied Alarm Services, Buffamante Whipple Buttafaro, P.C. and Courier Capital.

For more information, including viewing the leaderboards and prize winners, and to learn how to donate, go to givebigchq.org.