Horton, Paula (2010, April 25). 2-year-old loses eye to rare cancer. TriCity Herald. Retrieved from: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/04/25/990098/2-year-old-loses-eye-to-rare-cancer.html?storylink=addthis.
This article, as the title suggests, reports on a two-year old girl who was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer, and lost an eye because of it. The reason I decided to use this article for the project this week is because it lists basic facts about the disease that our team's fundraising would focus on.
↑ PERSONAL NOTE: I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with the goal of fundraising for a benefit - O.o - but, the team asked me to research eye cancer a little bit and to find an article on the topic, so - there you have it.
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Cancer Fund-raising Ideas [Budget cannot exceed $1,000]
I think that hosting a Relay would be the easiest way to raise money -- initially, I wanted to host an event that would have food, music, games, etc., but not only would that be a lot of work, but it would most likely exceed our team's expense budget. In my opinion, our best bet is to host a fundraising walk, hosted by volunteer workers, with the idea of increasing awareness of the disease. It would be $10 to walk - and if we can get 500 people to walk in our event, than we have raised $5,000 to benefit the American Cancer Society. We would take this opportunity to celebrate with the survivors of cancer, as well as honoring the memory of those who have died from the disease. I would like to suggest to my team that we host this event at a school; not only would a school track be a great choice for this event, but it would also be a great place to begin spreading awareness; the likelihood of our attracting at least 500 people would greatly be increased.
Basically, the tasks to be completed [in order] are as follows:
- Find a school location for the use of their track.
- Round up volunteer workers, to ensure everything runs smoothly and that people are paying an entry fee of $10 to walk.
*Edited: Idea pitch of mandatory entry fee has been waived.
Idk if you came across this article while doing your research, but if not - then i think it'll help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkathon
ReplyDelete(you can also use the 'external links' and 'see also' parts as references for your project. e.g. http://walkathonguide.com/ <-that one's a very useful link)
Now, regarding your idea, there's a few things i'd like to point out to you.
The first thing that caught my eye is that you made the donation of $10 mandatory. Now, I'm no expert when it comes to this stuff, but my intuition tells me that when it comes to donations, nothing should be forced upon the donators - you can suggest a sum, but you shouldn't enforce it. Look at it this way, if out of your 500 people 100 show up with only $5 in their pockets - if the fee is enforced, they'll have to leave, while if it's only suggested - they can still participate for the good cause and ultimately help you raise more money. Keep in mind that charity is about goodwill and conscience, not enforcement.
The second thing that i disagree with is making the walk at a school track. The goal of a fundraiser walk is to create/raise awareness among the general masses by attracting attention to yourself - thus, just walking around a track seems counter-intuitive since you wont get much attention there (except for, maybe, schoolkids). It is, however, a good idea to collaborate with a school and have the kids participate in the walk as an extra curriculum activity - a large mass of children (especially children wearing the same T-shits [i'll get to that in the next paragraph]) should, in theory, attract a lot of attention and plenty of followers. But as for the walk itself, in my opinion, it should be a carefully planned route along the city streets, so that on one hand - you'd get people's attentions, but on the other - wouldnt interfere too much with the business life of your city. You most likely would also need to obtain a permit from the city council, which I suggest you do some research on.
Now, earlier I mentioned something about t-shirts. One thing you might want to consider is having some sort of color theme and slogan for your walk. Have your team decide on that. Now, since you guys are organizing a charity event, you would also have to contribute some charity - in fact more than anyone else participating. Now, what you guys could do, is chip in and order, say, 100 t-shirts with your colors and slogan. When the march starts, give these t-shirts to the kids from the school that you're organizing the event with, and wear them yourselves. You can also give out free t-shirts that are left over to whoever decides to walk the walk with you - an extra incentive for people to join you.
Lastly, i'd want to come back to the donations issue. Your best option is to collect money after and not before the walk. Here's how I personally would conduct the event: I'd make advertisements (distribute flyers, etc) with the date and time and location of the start of the walk. Those flyers should also contain the approximate time the walk would take, the scheduled route, and your slogan in big bold letters. Once the day and time comes, and you, hopefully, have at least a few hundred people, some kids, and yourselves at the place of start, distribute the t-shrits, more flyers (for the walkers to hand out to pedestrians) and make a short speech, stating again the goal of the event, the planned route and time, and (this is where you mention it first) that donations will be accepted at the end of the walk, and will be greatly appreciated. There you will also point out that the suggested amount is $10, however you (and the cancer kids) will be greatly thankful for any amount that people are willing to donate. Also, encourage people to encourage pedestrians to join the walk when you're out in the streets - that way you are guaranteed to end up with more people among your ranks than you started with, which will, in turn, guarantee more money at the end.
ReplyDeleteAs for the end of your route, you'd need to have some tables set up in advance, with people already ready to accept donations (preferably big plastic bottles so that people can see how much money is gathered. Something like this: http://www.drplayer.com/blog/glass%20bottle.jpg (that thing is like 2 feet tall). Have the "eye cancer donations" printed on the boxes and "we'd appreciate $10 or more, but any amount is welcome" in fine print below..
So, yea, those are my thoughts.. i hope these prove to be helpful, and ensure you a grade of A+ (and who knows, maybe a real event will even be organized based on this... that would be awesome!)
xoxo
Thank you so much, Felix - that really helped me out a whole lot ♥ I really appreciate it!
ReplyDelete