Changing with the Times

Greetings friends! It has been a while since my last post. I was on an amazing 10 day vacation to San Francisco and Hawaii and had lots to catch up on when I got back. Hawaii is an incredible place, I have never seen such amazing natural beauty.

So I'm happy to announce that we're going to be launching a new fundraiser item- our own Project Smile coloring book! The color book will be designed by children, for children. We're going to sell advertising space to help cover the cost of producing the coloring book and to raise funds. We will debut it at our Anniversary Celebration on October 21. We will sell some on our website and we will donate some to the departments and organizations that participate in our program. The coloring book will be replacing the calendar. It is sad to think of the calendar disappearing, it was my very first idea for a fundraiser and marketing tool. Our first calendar was produced in 2003. We're now on our 13th calendar. However, it is time for a change. The calendar sales have been declining the last couple of years and we need to do something new. I think the coloring book would be perfect. A lot of people don't necessarily use paper calendars anymore (I do) and also it was just time for a new thing. People get bored with seeming the same type of thing, so we need to mix it up. I will miss doing the photos, that is always fun, but maybe in the future we can do something else that will incorporate photos of children. We're going to be doing a drawing contest to encourage children to submit drawings that we can use in the coloring book. I'm going to reach out to local schools and also the police/fire departments that used to participate in the calendar and see if any of their children would like to enter the contest. We will invite the children and their parents whose drawings were selected for the coloring book. I need to get a contest flyer done, then start working on advertising. I'm excited to do something new and see how it goes. I have a lot of confidence in this and I'm happy that we're changing.

There is a lot of change happening this year. We're adding a new event- the High Heel Dash. We've given the Date Auction a new design look, new webpage, new start time and now I need to move on to making some changes to the Anniversary Celebration. I also want to add a new Smiling Stiletto Chapter in Providence which will help Project Smile eventually expand in that area. Change is good!

On that note, I am off to finish the items on my to-do list. I got a  lot done today, but there are still a few more things I need to do. Until next time friends...