as NOTED before, WR and i set up a fundraiser party to help us along our way to our parallel $3000 requirements to participate in the AIDS/lifeCycle fundraiser in june. that happened this past sunday, and a finer day could not have been hoped for.

neither one of us had ever hosted a fundraiser before, so we went into this sort of blind. i had the benefit of having watched a friend host a couple last year, and i just hijacked a couple of her ideas outright, then asked her for some guidance on some other things, and then came up with even more original shit with WR. in the end, what we enticed people with was the following…

+ DRINK SPECIALS — note to self, any time you wanna raise money, attach it to booze. the bar donated two handles of vodka to the cause. with one bottle they made 2 trays of jell-o shots, and they used the other to pour vodka/crans. jell-o shots were $3, vodka/crans were $4, and since the vodka was a donation on the bar, all the profits went to us.
+ CUPCAKES — WR and his wifeBot(tm) scooped up about 33,000 cupcakes from safeway and then put little .75" x .75" team lope logo flags on the top of each one, and sold them for $3 a pop. WR and i ate the cost of the cupcakes as our own donation, so again, all profits to the cause.
+ RAFFLE — this was the biggest money-maker. we got lots of our friends (and ourselves) to donate products and/or services as prizes and then sold raffle tix at different stages of pricing. 1 ticket was $2, 5 tix were $4, and 15 tix were $10. the prizes were … one (1) matted photograph by a professional photographer friend of mine, two (2) different $50 gift certificates to a restaurant that another friend of mine manages, one (1) haircut from my ex-(SG)f, one (1) comic art commission from WR, one (1) bike fitment from WR’s good friend and fellow team lope commandant el jefe, one (1) nature walk from a friend of mine who works for parks and rec, and one (1) bike tune-up from me, alternately redeemable for a night of drinks if you don’t have a bike.

the day was absolutely GORGEOUS, and all in all, i’d say we had about 50 planned guests, PLUS the regulars that were already there. and bonus, the bar’s a hardcore lesbian bar, so the regulars were already the target market. plus, you know, jell-o shots.

everyone had a great time drinking and carousing and eating cupcakes and buying raffle tickets like they might win a fucking space shuttle or something, and the winners of the prizes almost couldn’t have been hand-picked better. the winner of the haircut was this super butch barback with like a sloppy military flat-top, so ex-(SG)f is gonna have an easy time of that. the recipient of the bike fit was a cyclist, the winner of the comic art commission already looks like a superheroine, the winner of the bike tune-up is a good buddy of mine who LOVES to go out drinkin, so he traded that in for the drinks (still to come), and really, it just went the way it should all the way around.

and in the end? the bottom line? almost FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. we have a few creative ways to split it up between us, and it’s a huge boon to the funds we need to participate in the ride.

WR and i are super happy with the results, obviously, but i think we were just pleased to see so many people turn up to support not just us, but the cause itself. and that’s what’s important.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Team Lope Fundraiser: Wild West Side Bar April 25th
2. TLTC Ride Report: Team Lope’s Youngest Member
3. Team Lope ALC Fundraiser Picked up by Pedal Consumption