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Category Archives: Informative
Preparing, Planning, and Bowling
So we had more than a busy weekend preparing for our event, hammering out the details, and finally throwing the First Annual Bowling for Wishes event. Our day started at about 1 o’clock on Saturday when we started our drive down to Warwick. We met up with Chris at his house and began putting together the gift baskets which we wanted to give away as raffle prizes. We organized the prizes in a manner that we thought would make the most sense to be put together and gave the baskets creative names, but we weren’t even close to done yet. Then we went to the dollar store with Chris to pick out decorations, another couple baskets, along with glow sticks and other essentials for the event. We also went on a mission to find stamps, raffle tickets, and cellophane to wrap the baskets which was actually harder to find than anyone expected. After we got all of the essentials we went to Chris’s shop to use his supplies and tools to put together the sponsorship boards and the raffle prizes board. We each had our own tasks such as typing what needed to be printed, cutting the pieces of paper, gluing the pieces to the poster board, and laminating flyers. Everything ended up looking great, but once again we were amazed by how much time was consumed. Through all of this we made jokes, talked about the event, and generally had a good time. When we finished at the shop, we went to Chris’s house again, put the finishing touches on the baskets and then ordered a feast of pizzas from one of our sponsors. All in all, a good, fun, and productive day.
The next day we left for Warwick at 10:45 to pick up balloons for the event and gift cards for Chris and Dana. We then went to Chris’s house to pick up the rest of the decorations and gift baskets we needed. We then went to bowling alley and put up those decorations. This included putting paper up on the glass doors to block the daylight, making a few last minute signs, hanging balloons at the entrances, setting up tables for the raffle and DJ, and speaking with the employees of the bowling alley so we could have the entire operation run smoothly.
Once the event started, time really began to fly. People seemed to show up all at once buying their lanes and raffle tickets. This time went by like a blur. We did give away prizes for certain bowling competitions, we did an interview with a local newspaper, took pictures, attempted to video tape the important parts of the event and everyone seemed to have a fun time. We did the raffle towards the end of the event and I think the prizes we had were definitely something the people at the event wanted. After the raffle we had about another half hour of bowling and then cleaned up all the decorations we had put up and went out with our group for a Rhode Island specialty. Hot wieners all the way, mousetraps, and coffee milk. We went with Chris, his family, and some of the guys he works with at Tech 911 and had a good time with them.
Finishing the event has a bittersweet feeling. We worked really hard and put a lot hours into this event so we are all delighted that it was a success, but at the same time now its over. We all agreed to keep in touch and I look forward to seeing everyone again in the future. It’s not goodbye, it’s I’ll see you later.
Event Completed Updated “What We’ve Raised Page”
Our event has come and gone and we thought yesterday was a great success! It was great to finally see our hard work go into action and finally realize the fruits of our labor over the entire semester! After our event we have made $1005! That has brought us to a grand total of $3,330.73 donated to Children’s Wishes this semester. It was a great feeling finally handing all that money over to Dana and Children’s Wishes and we were really happy with the outcome of our event. More details to come.
Check out the final “What We’ve Raised Page” to see a full breakdown of our progress throughout the semester!
Money Collected!
We are excited to announce that our PF Changs event went better than we had planned. We raised $123.23! After leaving we thought that this was not going to do well, but we were pleasantly surprised to hear that PF Changs had donated that money to Childrens Wishes on our behalf. Our grand total now is $2,325.73!
We have updated our “What We’ve Raised Page”, click the link below to see our progress! We are very excited for our main event this Sunday at Meadowbrook lanes!
Continuing to Spread the Word
Thank you to everyone who gave helpful tips in class yesterday! Many of you agreed to forward our flyer to your teammates, which I really appreciate!
Also, I reached out to a friend who is an RA and she had sent our flyer to all of her residents and to all other RAs. I have sent the flyers to my whole Honors Mentor Program as an idea for them to do with their mentors or a group of friends (this is a group of over 150 students)! I used the suggestion of trying to have SAIL approve our flyer to be sent out to all lists like Three for PC did, but they said “this is not the type of material we send out in our emails.” Our main corporate sponsor, Tech 911, has been sending out flyers to all of his clients and posting about our event on his Facebook. Our community partner, Children’s Wishes, has sent out the e-mail-version of our flyer to all of their former sponsors and contacts to encourage more participants.
I have called and e-mailed the Warwick Beacon, The Providence Journal, WJAR NBC 10, and WPRI to give them a “news tip” that we believe our event would be a great one to cover! We hope to see at least some type of media there because Children’s Wishes needs more people to be aware of the organization and more people to be willing to donate in the future. Also, we want our sponsors to get as much publicity as possible so that they will be more willing to help out Children’s Wishes in the future.
Today begins our weekend of craziness, but we are excited that it’s finally here! Tonight Pat, Mike, and I are meeting up to finalize our slide show for the event, then we are heading into Warwick to pick up a few last donations and hang up a couple more flyers at those locations, then we will meet up with Chris to iron out plans for tomorrow and Sunday and to make a shopping list of items and decorations we need before Sunday.
Tomorrow, we will spend the entire afternoon helping Chris shop, making the raffle baskets, and finalizing our event logistics.
Then Sunday is our big event!! We REALLY would love for our classmates to come support us! It would mean so much to us! Please encourage your friends to come along!
Learning From PF Changs Event
Today we were trying to push our event at PF Changs. We had the coupons that people would have to give to their waiters after dinner to get a portion of their dinner donated to Childrens Wishes. Our game plan was to hand coupons to people as they walked in that way they would use them immediately. The idea was great, but obstacles that we could not see were going to come up later that day.
We split the day up into shifts. PF Changs was going to donate portions of checks from 11AM-10PM. My shift was first from 12-3 and upon arrival I started to put up as many flyers as I could all over the outside of the mall. As I was putting up flyers about 5 people asked me about the event and I was thrilled because this area has so much human traffic. After putting up the flyers I started handing out coupons. To my dismay, the manager of PF Changs told me I could not hand out coupons in the mall as well as hand outing flyers. I was then forced to go outside and give coupons to people on the street, but I had no idea if they were actually going into PF Changs. It turned out that none of the people I handed the coupons to went to PF Changs that day.
I decided to hang a few more flyers, adding to the 30 I had already put up in the area. At this point I was confronted by a mall security officer who said I was on private property and there was no way that I could put up these flyers. He added that they would fine us and force us to take them down. He then pointed me in the direction of the security office where I could speak with the head of security. My initial instinct was to run, but I decided to walk in the direction of the office. I waited till he was out of sight and then I sprinted to my car.
Within minutes back on campus I received a text from Liz saying that the head of security called her regarding my flyers. I thought that being that these flyers were for a charity, they would feel bad taking them down. But when Liz went for her shift at 5 there were no flyers left.
Both Pat and Liz had a similar experience to my own and we did not make as much money as we hoped from the whole endeavor.
Overall, the day did not go as planned. But we tried and hopefully we can get more flyers and advertising up in other places besides the mall. One piece of advice: DON’T GO TO THE MALL TO DO ANYTHING FOR YOUR EVENT! Good luck to those doing their events this week. Be sure to spread the word about our event this Sunday!
Come bring this to PF Changs tomorrow, give it to your server, and then 20% of your bill goes to helping Grant a child’s wish.
Group Meeting and Updated “What We’ve Raised Page”
Today we met to create a schedule for the following week. Our event is scheduled for this Sunday, so we are definitely feeling a sense of urgency. We are planing on taking shifts outside P.F. Changs on Wednesday handing out flyers/coupons for our event. People who use our coupons at P.F. Changs for dinner Wednesday night will have 20% of their bill donated directly to Childrens Wishes.
We are planning on getting final decorations and other supplies for our event on Friday and Saturday. We are also planning on making our own sponsor board, so supplies for that will need to be purchased as well.
Finally, Liz was able to secure $85 of pure donations to Childrens Wishes so our “What We’ve Raised” page has been updated to reflect a total amount of $2,202.50 donated to Childrens Wishes thus far. We are very excited about our event coming up this week and can’t wait to finally see the results of our labor over the entire semester.
Today’s Update
I called some contacts that Chris had provided at our last meeting and had great success today. The first person I spoke with told me “you caught me off guard, but email me and I’m sure we can do something to help.” So I called the next place and received their voice mail so I will give them another call tomorrow. The next person I called is the one I am most excited about. I called Dave who owns a snow cone truck and asked if he was available to come to Providence College and sell snow cones to the students during the day on Saturday. There is a large event going on off-campus this Saturday and Dave said he was available on Saturday and that he would be happy to cut his profits with our organization 20%. He also said he would check his calendar to see if he was available on the 26th as well. I was amazed by quickly and easily I was able to establish this contact and how ready he was to help. I emailed both of the contacts I spoke with today and I hope to hear back from them soon and continue to keep in touch with them. I hope everyone is craving a snow cone this weekend as much as I am.
Sunday Meeting
Our meeting on Sunday was easily one of the best meetings we had all year. Liz had offered earlier in the week to make dinner for Mike and I and we could also have our regular meeting as well. Dinner which consisted of chicken and pasta with sauce was absolutely delicious! Thank you Liz! So it was nice that we all got to sit down and have a meal with each other and while we had dinner we talked about a few different subjects which for the most part did not have much to do with our project. We talked about relay for life which Liz had put a great deal of time and effort into and we also talked about Mike’s job interview on Friday which went really well. After dinner, we sat down and discussed what we were going to do in the upcoming weeks leading up to the event. There is still quite a bit of work to be done, but we decided that this week is going to be our last push to make partnerships, and find sponsors before we begin to lay out our final plans for the event. So we spent some time on Sunday focusing on making a timeline for the event day and thinking about what is going to need our time, focus, and energy that day and leading up to that day.
Helping Children 