This year I am participating in Relay for Life for the first time with a team from the Writing Center where I work. Being on a team involves both personal and group fundraising in the weeks leading up to the event on April 26th. For me, personal fundraising has involved sharing my goals with my family and sharing my fundraising page via social media. As a group, my team is focusing on two major projects: a raffle and collecting tips.
The tip jar idea was my boss’s, and it stemmed from how many people pop into the Writing Center to use our stapler. Now, at different stapling hotspots around campus we have tip jars encouraging students who use public staplers to donate their change when they use them.
The raffle project is my favorite method we are using to gain funds because we have been reaching out to the Westminster community for donations and have enjoyed an overwhelmingly positive response. My coworker and I went to some local businesses the other day to talk about Relay for Life and in just an hour we had a gift cards from both CUP, a local tea shop, and Classico’s, a family-owned Italian restaurant. We also got a promise from an Italian deli to fill an entire basket for us.
Besides the places where we secured definite donations, we explored some cool places on Main Street, such as a bookstore called Eclecticity that displayed a ton of local art and had a room where you could fill up at bag of books for $5!
I was a little intimidated by the idea of approaching businesses for donations, but the response has been so positive that I am looking forward to making contact with more organizations. And, of course, all this fundraising is making me really amped for Relay for Life in general!
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