Gaming

The Sakakawea Fence Stretchers Inc. Trail Assoc. is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization and in good standing, founded in 2019.  We currently do not have any charitable gaming sites.  We are actively in search of a site were we can conduct charitable gaming, our message to our communities as to why we are seeking a gaming site(s) boils down to the simple conclusion that we have many gaming sites within our trail system that are not under local control, and we feel are not returning nearly as much as they should or are not being very charitable, if even at all, to many of the non gaming non profits in our area. Our organization relies heavily on donations to fund our everyday operations when grooming the trail system, without the cooperation of gaming organizations donating charitable funds to local organizations we will likely see them disappear from our landscape to never be seen again. Many of these organizations are critical to helping many groups of people from kids to adults.  We do have a couple LOCAL gaming organizations in the area that are great and very charitable and we commend them for that, we greatly appreciate their support for our communities.  But the truth is the majority of local gaming funds are leaving the area for the big city lights and from what we can tell we believe very little of it makes it back to our communities.  Any site(s) we procure we pledge to return the charitable funds to the area and to projects that better the area in which procured the funds.   A real world hypothetical example of what is currently happening is a big city organization that supports a big city kids sporting group that brings in millions in gaming dollars and likely has 15, or possibly more gaming sites takes in the money, spends a majority of it on big city sports by sending big city kid athletes all over the country to play in tournaments, all the while our local school is having a bake sale and selling pizzas just to try to scrape a few dollars together for uniforms or maybe some new basketballs.  The money is there to support these groups, so why are we OK shipping the money out to never come back.  Don’t get us wrong, these organizations do send SOME donations to the local Fire Departments, ambulances and some schools, but the actual percentage coming back to our communities we feel is so low that we think the general public would be shocked and outraged to know the truth, and to find out how much money these gaming operations actually bring in, it would make the average taxpayer wonder why property and sales taxes need to go up for basic minor community upgrades.  Please pay attention to who the gaming organization is at your local pub, it needs to be posted in the establishment.  If your pub does not use a local charity ask them why are they so content to send your money that you have donated to far away places that do not or rarely benefit your community, because there are several options that are local, these pubs are relying heavily on local patrons to keep their businesses operating.  Our basic message is “Buy Local when possible and support local businesses and organizations that also support the community in return”.  If you truly want to keep your donations local and under local control, only donate to the establishments that use LOCAL charitable gaming organizations.