Relay for Life Planning

I've been spending a lot of time lately as the head of our system's Relay for Life team. Not only do we have a participating team we're also the sponsor and host! I never knew how much planning goes into putting on an event like this. Part of the real challenge is to find time for planning along with continuing my day job. Needless to say, it has been experience.

We've held a couple of fundraisers for our team. One of them was a media sale where we sell used books, cd's, dvd's, vhs tapes, and software, that our system's employees donate, for a $1. We sold over 400 items in one day.

Our biggest fundraiser is a system wide "theme" basket sale. We challenge different departments in our system to create different theme baskets. Some of them this year were "Dinner & a Movie", "Fun in the Sun", "Baby Boy", I think you get the point. We set them out for a whole week and seek a$1 donation for a ticket to win the basket. Last year, one department used a wheelbarrow for a basket. This year coolers seemed to be the "basket" of choice. We had over 30 baskets this year and we broke last year's record by raising almost $7000 in donations for the baskets. Believe it or not, one lady won three baskets! I asked her if she wanted to go buy some lottery tickets after work.

Despite all the extra work, it has been fun working for such a great cause. Some of the best people you can meet are ones that volunteer their time for events such as the Relay. I'm planning on spending the whole night this year so wish me luck. Please share any favorable experiences you've had with Relay.