2008

Year Four!

In 2008, we did some totally different kinds of things for fundraising.

My sister and her husband own a karate school: Turner's Martial Arts. First, we had an expo for all kinds of services and products at the school. There were several corporate sponsors, and all kinds of services provided. All the vendors offered discounts and gave part of the proceeds to the 3 day through our team.

Then, we raised a lot of money with a Stranger Danger and rape defense course class that Master Turner (we call him Chaz) taught. The kids loved the stranger danger class. They all wanted to know what Master Turner would do in all kinds of outlandish situations - it was fun to watch, and the rape defense class was really well attended too!

On top of that, we had a yoga and pilates open house. We had a kid yoga class and that was the cutest thing ever and then half hour pilates and yoga classes by donation and my sister's pilates studio Power Ranch Pilates. We sent a lot of letters and got great family support, made some t-shits and sold those too.

Finally, we had our first ever - now to annual - Texas Hold 'Em tournament and it was wicked fun. I didn't even play poker and I had a blast. My brother - in - law Paul won, but family doesn't get to keep the prize, so second place got a new Garmin GPS system. She cried when she won it and said she was going to give it to her husband for Christmas.



Here is first and second place:





Lot's of people say that raising the money is the hardest part, and in some ways that's true. It's hard to ask for things, from anyone. But once you've been a part of this experience it gets a lot easier and each year we get more motivated to raise more money. After the first year, you realize it's much easier to ask because you aren't really asking for yourself and then every year after that it just becomes more and more important to do it so you don't care that you're asking again.