Friday Updates

I'm blogging on a Friday- that usually doesn't happen! I didn't want the week to end without blogging at least once more. So here I am, just finished a late lunch and wrapping things up. I finished a grant today and have it sitting on my desk, ready to be mailed. I feel a little rusty with my grant writing. I haven't done as many lately and I feel like I'm working on them slower than I usually do. I have a lot more grants to work on, so I'm sure the pace will be picking up again.

On Monday morning, we will be donating to Boston police again. It has been a while since our last donation, so I'm happy about donating there again. We will be doing the usual items- stuffed animals, reading books, coloring books/crayons. Next week, there are a lot of other departments that I'm going to be contacting. I had to spend a lot of time working on the events in August and September (and before), so I'm trying to catch up on everything that I didn't get to.

Well, that's the latest for today. I did post some great photos from the Anniversary Celebration on our Project Smile Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Project-Smile/50833009535 courtesy of David Fox and Michael Merline. So be sure to check them out when you have a chance. Next month, they will be on our website. Until next time friends..Happy Halloween weekend!

Tuesday News

We are in the last week of October- can you imagine it? It seems like yesterday that I was getting ready for the Anniversary event on October 1, now it is almost a month later! I still have some auction items that I'm trying to get to people too! So what's new? Well, on Friday, we dropped off our donation of stuffed animals, books, toys and crayons for the Morgan Memorial Goodwill childrens holiday party. We're also going to be doing an extra donation for the Department of Children and Families holiday efforts for children. I wish we could do more for kids at Christmas time.

Today, I had a meeting with Melissa who runs the Hello Stiletto Shoe Club and Reggie from Reggie B productions. They are working together on a really cool Santa and Stilettos holiday party which will benefit Project Smile. We will be getting a portion of the ticket proceeds and having a silent auction at the event. We will promote the event to our network too. The party will be on Saturday, December 11 at the Hyatt Regency, Boston (save the date!). There will be a fashion show, complimentary cocktails, appetizers, musicians and other cool things- some of the details are still being worked out. The tickets will be $20 in advance or $25 at the door- definitely an affordable event. I am excited to be involved and I'm glad that they are supporting our efforts. I don't have a lot of time to plan many more events, so it is perfect to be able to participate in events like this- we really need to do more of that.

Well friends, that's it for tonight. I have been really tired lately- so tired that this morning- my cell phone, which I keep on the floor next to my bed, was ringing and I didn't even hear it! Tomorrow evening, I will be going to a networking event in the Framingham area. I also need to finish a grant which is due in a couple of weeks. Until next tomorrow friends...

Thursday Updates

Well, I'm still slacking with my blogging- I need to get on a better blogging schedule. I was intending to blog last night, but closed my eyes for a few minutes at 11:30 and the next thing I knew it was 2am! So what's happening? Tomorrow, I am dropping off our annual donation to the Morgan Memorial Goodwill children's holiday party. This will be our 3rd year donating for the holiday party. I really enjoy supporting their event, it is a really great event. We don't do a children's holiday event, so it is really good that we can support other big events. Some day, we will have our own kids Christmas event, but I don't have the resources for that now. I'm not sure when we will because I have a long list of other events that I would like to do before that. We are dropping of our donation earlier this year, it makes things a little easier for me to do things early. I always appreciate getting donations well in advance of our events, so I think Goodwill appreciates the earliness too.

Calendar sales are moving slowly- I need to work harder on getting them sold. We used up our web update time this month, so I would have had to pay extra to get the 2011 calendars promoted on our website. I decided to hold off the extra 2 weeks and wait until November 1 to do the update. I hate having things out dated on our site, but I also need to keep costs down, so if it isn't super urgent, I would rather save the money.

I finished one grant application today and mailed it off. We have received grants from this Foundation for the past 2 years, so hopefully they will be able to keep supporting our work. I also have 3 other grants that I need to work on. It always feels so good to send the grant in- of course it feels even better when we actually get awarded the grant!

Well friends, that's it for tonight. I was going to go back and do some more work, but I think I will catch up on my magazine reading- I have a stack of good magazines that I haven't had time to read and I'm going to have another slice of the cranberry walnut bread that I made today- so good! I also have to write my list. Until next time friends...

Updates

It has been over a week since my last blog- dreadful! I'm sorry for slacking so much with my blogging lately, I need to rework my schedule and set aside more time for blogging. So what's new? Well, I finally feel back to my usual energy level. Since the Anniversary Celebration, I had been so tired, I kept working on things, but it felt like it was taking me much longer than normal to get things done. I don't know what changed, but yesterday I felt so much better and now I'm back to my usual work. I'm still behind on a lot of things that I didn't get to because of all the attention that was paid to the events for the last almost 2 months, but I'm working on getting up to date with things. The good news is that the date auction raised $18,000- even more money than I originally calculated. Between the two events, it was was a huge success. I'm so glad that things went well- I know I've already blogged about this, but it is such a relief you can't imagine.

In some more good date auction news- we have another love connection! One of the ladies that was auctioned off bid on one of the guys and he also bid on her- they have been inseparable since the event and they just changed their Facebook status to "In a relationship"- which is of course, huge! She actually emailed me this morning about the date auction and said how happy she was to have met the guy and how well things are going. I am so happy for them. It is about time we had another marriage, so I am keeping my fingers crossed! I love to hear happy stories like that. Maybe there have been other love connections too that I don't know about.

In less than positive news, I am still trying to get auction items to people from both events. They are not a lot of items thankfully, but it does get frustrating when you call people and they don't get back to you. I don't know why someone would bid on an item that they didn't want. I did hear back from someone today who bought a gift certificate. He is actually working in an island west of Hawaii and called me so I could process his credit card payment over the phone- if he can call me from the Pacific islands, then there is no excuse for anyone else! I am also still waiting on quite a few payments from calendar sponsors. I know that the sponsors will pay, but it is time consuming to keep following up with people. It also gets frustrating when people commit to something and don't follow through in a timely manner.

So what else is going on? We will be donating again to the Morgan Memorial Goodwill children's holiday party. We've been donating to their holiday party for the past few years, it is such a nice event to be a part of.

I have a lot of grants that I need to work on. Tomorrow, I need to spend time working on grants and I need to work on contacting more police and fire departments to donate to. Well friends, that is the latest. I promise I won't be such a blog slacker- I actually really enjoy writing my blog and sharing the latest news. I am going to read for a bit- I have a few new books from a book swap tonight and from my sister that I want to read and a stack of magazines AND I want to watch the re-run of the Real Housewives of DC reunion show- my favorite guilty pleasure! Until next time friends...

Success!

Well friends, our 7th Anniversary Celebration was a success! We raised almost $8,000. It was a little less than last year, but there was also a rainstorm on Friday which affected attendance a bit. It was a great night! Pam Cross, our speaker, was excellent, Miss Massachusetts was so nice- she even spoke as well. I had no idea that she had donated stuffed animals to Project Smile in the past and was already familiar with our work. Almost all of our silent auction items sold and most people stayed to the end and took their items with them, which makes it a lot easier for me. I don't have too many people that I have to get items to and collect money for. I am really relieved. It was a lot of work, but it was definitely worth it. Everything went well- the food was delicious, the cake was excellent, the hotel did a great job making everything look good, balloons looked really pretty and I got a lot of great feedback from the people that attended. I'm so happy that both events went well. I am also glad that they are over. I love working on events, but will be good to have a break before I start working on the next ones. I know that I will need to plan a spring event at some point in time, but right now, working on 2 big events is enough.

I would like to say thank you to everyone who helped make last night and the date auction such a success- without the people that sponsored, who donated items, volunteered their time, attended the events, bought items- everyone who helped make these events a success- thank you! I truly appreciate your help.

Well, I am going back to work- I have emails to send, bills to pay, things to mail and I need to submit quite a few website updates. I know it is Sunday night, but there is still a lot to get done. Since I am home tonight, I might as well work.
Until next time friends...

The Night Before

Well, here we are again- the night before another big event. Our Anniversary Celebration is very different from our date auction, but the feelings are still the same- nervous and excited. I feel like I've done everything that I could do to ensure a good event, I've put the word out, I've asked other people to help promote and share the event with their connections. If we can match last year's attendance, that would be awesome. We have over 115 silent auction items, which is fabulous. I finally got all the bid sheets done. I was up until 3am the night before last to get almost all of them done. It takes a lot of time because you have to describe the item and then list an opening bid- that takes a little time because you don't want to start the bids too high or go too low. I still have to work on my speech for tomorrow, but everything else is looking good. I've confirmed with our special guests, musicians, balloon company, friend who is bringing the projector so I can play a calendar photo slide show, credit card machine is all ready to go. I hope there is nothing that I've missed. I am nervous, I've worked so hard on this event, spent so many hours- it needs to be a success to justify all this time and effort. I ordered some extra food, because the food did run out last year and I got a bigger cake. It was a very nice surprise today when I went to pick up the cake, Konditor Meister, the awesome bakery in Braintree, donated the cake! I had faxed over a letter asking for a discount on the cake, I wasn't actually expecting that they would donate the cake.

Well, I am off to work on my speech for tomorrow and check- for the umpteenth time, that I have everything for tomorrow. One of the good things is that the event is only a ten minute drive from home, so I can always dash back home for something- but I want to avoid that. I've never had to do that before. I'm going to get to the Doubltree super early, 2pm tomorrow. The event doesn't start until 6:30, but I like to set everything up and relax. I will bring my book with me and if I have down time and no one else is around, I will read for a while. Please wish me luck! I hope we have a great turn out and everyone has a good time and wants to come back next year and bring their friends and of course, I hope that we raise a lot of money- those are the two goals for tomorrow. The financial aspect is the biggest priority. I will let you know how it goes- I know I've been a lousy blogger lately and I'm sorry for not updating the way I should be. I need to fix that.

Until next time friends... here's hoping that it will all pay off and we will have a wonderful night!

Date Auction Success!

Well, we had an awesome night on Friday with the date auction! We raised a record amount of over $16,000. I am so happy and relieved. Everything went smoothly, we had a great turn out and lots of really positive feedback from people who attended. Our hosts, Karson and Kennedy were absolutely awesome. They were really energetic and did a great job. I invited them to come back last year. They talked about the date auction on-air yesterday morning, they said some very nice things about the event. Karson sent me a clip of their chat and I'm going to have our web host add it to our event page soon. I've uploaded a bunch of photos on our Project Smile Facebook page, so please check them out. We had one bachelor go for $3,200 and another bachelor, an ER doctor, went for $3,500! That was so exciting- I couldn't quite believe what I was watching as the bids got higher and higher. We had a great group of volunteers helping out as well to make sure everything went smoothly. There was one funny thing that happened about 2 hours before event time- I had finished setting up and the staff that a local temp agency had sent to help during the event had just arrived, when all of a sudden the fire alarm went off! My first thought was- I didn't have an anxiety dream about this happening! Everything was fine though, we were back to normal after a brief time. Can you imagine if that had happened during the event!

I've been doing a lot of work wrapping things up from the date auction, I've been following up with getting silent auctions to the winners, I just have about 5 more items that need to be paid for and delivered. I also need to send in the Sofft shoes order forms and return the shoe samples and wrap up a few other things. Sofft was so awesome, they even gave me a pair of shoes- gorgeous purple strappy shoes- they are quite comfy too. Having their support is such a huge part of the event. They gave a pair for Kennedy to wear during the event too.

The major focus now is the anniversary event next week, particularly getting people to the event. Tomorrow, I am going to spend a ton of time following up with everyone that I have invited. I also need more volunteers to help that night. I also need to pick up some other auction items that have been promised. I can't believe it is only 10 days away!

I picked up our 2011 calendars today and they look awesome! I think this is my favorite calendar. The photos really look great. I'm actually really excited for it to be debuted at our event. The printer likes this calendar the best too. I can't believe this is my 7th calendar already- it goes by so amazingly quickly.

Well, I wish I had more energy- I have so much to do. I have been so tired- leading up to the date auction I didn't get a lot of sleep and I feel like I haven't caught up yet. I am now so wrapped up with getting things ready for next week. I also need to start on the bid sheets for the silent auction- we have 100 to do! I hope everything goes well next week too- I feel like we are half way there with the success of the date auction- we just have to get to keep the momentum going for the Anniversary event- that is so important.

I am off to bed, I was going to work, but I think I need to sleep. Last night, I was going to blog, but I fell asleep at 11:30- crazy early for me. Saturday night was kind of funny, I got home and was in bed at 1am, I turned on my bedside lamp because I was going to put on hand lotion- I fell asleep before I even reached for the hand cream. I woke up hours later, wondering why there was such a bright light by my head! Until next time friends... wish my luck- hopefully I will get some good response tomorrow and our guest list will grow!