Mike, Pat, and I just returned from a ten hour, all-day outing to put everything together for our event tomorrow. Since we already have done all of the hardest work of getting the sponsors and raffle items, we thought today might be a few hours, but it ended up turning into the whole day. Yet, we got so much done and had a lot of fun hanging out together with Chris.
We went to Chris’s house and organized all of our raffle prizes to be grouped together to see how many more raffle baskets, clear wrap, and ribbons to buy. We typed up what each basket includes, typed up all of our sponsors (Platinum, Gold, and Silver), and typed up all of our sponsors’ logos for the table.
We piled in Chris’s truck and went store to store getting raffle tickets, decorations, presentation boards, raffle baskets, cellophane, ribbon, stamps, etc. After our shopping was done, we went to Chris’s office to use his printer and set up our boards. We had a blast taking turns printing, using the paper-cutter, and the laminator to make some amazing sponsor’s boards and a board that had a list of all 8 of our raffle baskets. We spent several hours there.
Then we went to pick up our last raffle item, which was a gift card to Chill-out-Loud, a frozen yogurt place. Of course, we also had to try out the flavors and toppings ourselves while we were there too ;). Then, we went back to Chris’s house to assemble all of our baskets and sit down for a nice meal of pizza and wings with he and his family.
I think I can speak for the entire group when I say that after all of the time and work we have put into the event, it is going to be bittersweet to see it end. We have become really close to each other and to Chris throughout this whole process. However, we also will be excited to have the stress and nerves of it behind us because we hope that after everything we have done, we have a full house tomorrow and bring Children’s Wishes lots and lots of money! Fingers crossed.
After a long day today, we only have another 12 hours before we get back together tomorrow at 10:45 a.m. to pick up balloons, some gifts that we want to buy Dana and Chris, and then head over to Chris’s to fill up the car with all the raffle items, decorations, and boards. Then we are going to be at the alley early to start setting up for our event, which starts at 3 and lasts until 7.
Busy weekend, we can only hope this work pays off!
Helping Children 