Friday, November 14, 2014

Event Success!

Greetings friends! I am happy to announce that we had an awesome 11th Anniversary Celebration last Friday. We raised 10K for Project Smile and had an awesome turnout. I was so happy with how the event went. The ballroom looked so pretty as well. We decorated with tons of stuffed animals which made it look wonderful. My sister Eve helped with the setting up the auction items so they were displayed well and Marcy, our awesome volunteer helped to get the balloons. We had more balloons than usual and saved $175 by getting them ourselves. Katelyn Flint from NECN filled in for news anchor Steve Aveson and she did a lovely job as our guest speaker. Our host Dick Ferrucci was amazing as always- he does the live auction as well and he is the best at it. He is awesome at getting people to bid and it is so entertaining to watch him work the crowd as well. The guests love him. Here are some photos from the event. You can check them all out on our Facebook page, photos courtesy of Clark Linehan: 11th Anniversary Celebration photos
With Katelyn Flint from NECN and my friend Olga Kwasniewski, Ms. Massachusetts Globe
 Here is a photo with our musicians who donated their time- the Barry Levine Jazz trio. They did a wonderful job performing.
 My sisters and I with our awesome host Dick Ferrucci

 With our board member Kelli Wentzell, owner of Theracopia Massage & Wellness Center.

 Our delicious cake from Konditor Meister
Thank you so much to everyone who donated, sponsored, attended and volunteered. I really appreciate everyone's support who made this event a success. It wouldn't have been possible without the kindness and support from so many people. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

On that note, I'm off to eat my grapefruit and catch up on some work. Until next time friends...

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

2 Days Until the Big Night

Well friends, here we are again- 2 days until our big night and our last event of the year. Our Project Smile 11th Anniversary Celebration is less than 48 hours away. I can't believe it! So, how are things looking? So far, we are in good shape. I picked up the calendars yesterday and they look awesome. The design and print quality is excellent and of course, the photos look terrific! Today, I picked up the event programs at Staples. All of our bid sheets are now done, live auction items are all set. I went to Party City tonight to select the balloons for the event. I realized I could save a ton of money by buying the latex balloons at Party City and bringing them to the event ourselves- I should have done that years ago. Having balloons delivered is so expensive it's a little ridiculous. I couldn't decide which balloon colors to choose- I was staring at the choices for what felt like forever. Two of the sales associates were a huge help in choosing the balloons. I told them about our event and they even drew up a floor plan to figure out how many balloons we needed and where to put them. They blew up some of the balloons so I could see the colors together. I was so impressed by their help- it made a huge difference. We ordered 48 balloons and it came to a total of $51. Our awesome volunteer Marcy, offered to pay for the balloons which was really nice of her. She is coming on Friday to help set up and help pick up the balloons too.

Our jazz musicians- the Barry Levine Jazz Trio- are confirmed. They are donating their time which is great. Steve Aveson, our guest speaker, has a scheduling conflict and won't be able to attend, but Steve obtained a replacement- Katelyn Flint, a new reporter for NECN. She seems really nice and is enthusiastic about participating. It's a shame not to have Steve there, but it should be fine. I'm picking up our cake tomorrow at Konditor Meister at Braintree- home of the best cakes.

I'm bringing a  lot of stuffed animals with me to the event so I can use them as decorations. I usually bring some anyways, but I want to use a lot more this time. I'm also going to tie the balloons around the beanie babies to anchor them. I do that at the Date Auction and it always looks cute. I have a bunch of beanie babies that I set aside to use as decorations at our events.

Well, that's the latest for tonight. I'm off to get some more things together and make sure that I haven't forgotten anything. Wish me luck friends! Until tomorrow....