Latest and Greatest!

Ah, it is already a week into October and I hadn't blogged yet this month! So what's new? Well, it is lots of busy days over here. Our fashion show fundraiser was last Thursday and it went great. It is our first time doing a full scale fashion show by ourselves and it worked out really well. We got a lot of positive feedback about the event. Danielle Vollmar from Channel 5 News hosted and she did a great job. The event was sponsored by Celebrity Cruises and Creative Wedding Solutions which was our event planner. We had lots of delicious food vendors- Sabine's Cuisine, Finale, Pretzel Crisps, Loves Cakes & Pastries and Tia's Baked and Unbaked Desserts. Guests also received a complimentary cocktail courtesy of Triple Eight Vodka. We had the event at the new Harborside Inn which was a great venue. I will have photos soon. It was a really fun night and I'm relieved that everything went well. We raised $2,500 for Project Smile which was excellent.

Last week, I donated almost 200 stuffed animals, books and coloring books/crayons to the Dept. of Children and Families for National Adoption Day which will be happening in courthouses across the state on November 22. 177 children are going to have their adoptions finalized. DCF puts together little care packets for the children to receive on that special day and they were in need of items, so we were happy to help. Here is a photo from the donation. We included a lot of the beautiful Build-a-Bears that the company donated to us this summer.

 DCF asked if we could help with donating items for one of their children's rooms at the Springfield office. They are looking for books, coloring books/crayons and art supplies among other items. I'm putting together items that we can provide for them. I offered stuffed animals as well and they are happy to have them. I'm planning to drop them off in Boston this week.

In other news, I'm working feverishly on our 10th Anniversary Celebration- this is our last big event of the year and it needs to be great (translation- it needs to raise a lot of money!). Last week, the paper invitations went out along with the first email blast. There will be an email blast each week about the event. I'm also promoting it on the Meet Up groups that I organize. I also need to keep reaching out to people and ask them to bring their friends to the event. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to get people to attend. I also am following up to get some additional auction items. Tomorrow, I need to follow up with sponsors and get all of their ads for the program and website.

Our awesome photographer Walter Smith sent me a disc of photos from the Date Auction, there are some excellent photos in there, so please check them out-

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151852674214536.1073741830.50833009535&type=1&l=ce7575cf82

Well, that's the latest for tonight. I'm off to do some organizing, send even more emails and watch the Jets hopefully win! Until tomorrow friends...