When he opened his Buda area salon last year, Anthonio Quach set out to differentiate his business from others.
In order to do so, Quach opted to help nonprofits with his profits.
So on June 21, 2018, Quach pledged a dollar from every manicure and pedicure service purchased at his salon toward an area nonprofit organization.
Last week, Quach donated $7,770 to the Friends of the Buda Public Library as the first of many contributions to come to local causes. Quach said he hopes to benefit the Hays County Food Bank next.
Quach told the Friends of the Buda Library he wanted to donate specifically to the library’s children’s programs. Hundreds of children attend summer reading programs, puppet shows and free library classes geared toward their development each year, according to the Friends of the Buda Library.
“That’s where his heart is,” Joan Givens, board secretary of the Friends of the Buda Library, said. “These are some of the library’s most popular programs every year, but they aren’t always included in the budget.”
Givens said the donation could not have come at a better time and has inspired her to find more donors. This year, the Friends of the Buda Library’s fundraising goal is higher than ever before, according to Roberta Haas, the organization’s fundraising chair.
This year, the group is working toward raising $50,000 for the library, a goal five times greater than in previous years.
The Friends of the Buda Library is a nonprofit organization that is completely volunteer run and operated. The organization is not solely responsible for the library’s funding nor fundraising but does exist to provide efforts that promote activities and learning for citizens.
Quach discovered this information when providing a pedicure to a member of the Buda Chamber of Commerce, who recommended the Friends of the Buda Library as highly-deserving beneficiaries.
“The library now uses four times the size of the last building,” Haas said. “I was very relieved (when we heard the amount of the donation) because we were really in need of a nice hefty donation for some of the programs the library wants in the future.”
The organization is already halfway to its goal, with approximately $20,000 raised to date. Quach’s donation inspired Haas to reach out to more businesses and corporations in the area in the hopes of garnering multiple large donations in the coming months.
“The need is so much greater than previous years, we have so many more people coming,” Givens said. “If you build it, they will come, and they did.”
