Some how, no one knew or informed us of Springfield having their
alumni parade at the same exact day, same exact time, starting at the same exact location as our walk for Shriners. I was really kinda mad about not knowing due to the fact there were some Shriners at the parade!! That, and the fact that a couple of walkers drove down from Burlington to join us and couldn't find us due to NBC's parking lot being full of floats! And the traffic detour crew weren't going to let our water guy return to our location when he returned from the store. Aside from all the headaches and hassles and changes in plans, we pulled it off. The weather was awesome! And we all walked and sweat and sweat some more and then headed back to Ron and Sue's for a celebratory cookout and refreshing swim in the pool. And we raised a decent amount for a very quickly thrown together event. And no help what-so-ever from any of the sources I had sought out for publicity...... you know who you are....and if you don't, you will...... All the things that worked against us this year were good though. It has shown me things I need to plan for and take into consideration for next year. I'm still hemming and hawing about a motorcycle run this year but I'll have to see how things go still..... that might take a lot more preparation than I can give. So far, we collected $1392 and some change...(2 donations were done online....and are basically separate from our collections...but I am still counting them due to they were because of our SOS fundraiser). This collection is potentially incomplete at this time as we have a few people who have asked to still give a donation, but were unable to do so by Friday, and since I'm not going to Shriners until July 8th, I told those people to just get it to me by the 7th, so I'm hoping they come through. I also have a 50 gallon trash bag full to the spilling point of nickel cans that I still have to recycle and will be adding that money to the pot. And we also received a lot of "goods" donations. Between the stickers, the banner and the shirts, that was about 500 dollars worth of stuff. And Ron and Sue spent a ton on food for our post-walk party. We also collected about 6-7 pounds of soda can tabs!!!! That's an insane amount of tabs. I am sad we only collect $1400, but considering we just did another charity drive 8 weeks ago and this one was planned and pulled off in 5 weeks, I'm definitely thrilled we were able to collect what we did. I may have also stumbled upon a corporate sponser for SHC too. There is a company near me that is looking for a new charitable organization to donate to....we are currently looking into it and I'm hoping for the best. I will keep everyone updated as I learn more. Thank you to everyone who walked, everyone who donated and thank you Shriners Hospital for Children.
