Fundraiser update with pictures!

Day 1 of the fundraiser went incredibly, nay, jaw-droppingly well. Seriously, it went crying-happy-tears-and-aglow-at-the-goodness-of-everyone-I-am-fortunate-enough-to-know well. I just finished tallying the numbers. I re-did them three times because I was sure I had made a mistake.

But before the big reveal...pictures! I went to the club last night to set everything up and actually remembered my camera!

The scene of the fundraiser: an otherwise non-descript former commercial/industrial building. Now: a place where dogs and their adoring humans zoom around agility courses at supersonic speeds! (Well, okay, sometimes not so supersonic, but that's the ideal.)

I had two tables. This is a smaller table near the entrance door. The banner I picked up from the LLS office looks great against the purple tablecloth and black velvet curtain panel!

On the left side of this smaller table are the box to put in 50/50 raffle tickets, a coffee can with the TNT and LLS logos printed on them for random cash donations, and a business card holder with my TNT cards in them. They tell when I'm racing, why I'm racing, and where to go on-line to make a donation.

On the right side of the table are the olive green (leukemia), blue (myeloma), and gold (lymphoma) ribbons I made a few weeks back, each pinned into a black velvety curtain panel. There's a picture of me and my mom in TNT shirts in the middle. At the beginning of the show this morning, I announced all of the LLS fundraising stuff that was going on and asked people to please take and wear a ribbon to honor or remember friends and family who were in treatment or who had succumbed to blood cancers. I saw a lot of ribbons being worn today and heard a lot of stories that had me blinking back tears.

Above the table, I hung information about the raffle tickets, and all the nifty stuff people could win just for helping out a good cause.

This is the raffle table. There are eight certificates on the table describing the items. (The big purple thing is an agility obstacle called a double jump.) The bits of red you see in front are the tickets that people have put in for each specific item.

PawPrintsLife was there doing their amazing action photography (you can see a shot of a Sheltie coming over a jump on the monitor), and they graciously agreed to donate a portion of this weekend's proceeds to LLS! Thank you so much, Virgil and Rebecca!

This is Jean and her Jack Russell Terrier Maddie of Three Jacks Dog Bakery. They sell fantastically yummy organic dog treats, and she too agreed to donate part of the proceeds from every bag of treats sold this weekend to LLS! Thank you, Jean! She also let me sit at her table to sell my raffle tickets and even sold some for me while I wasn't there. (The massive red roll of tickets = the "cool stuff" raffle tickets.)

So, back to the happy-tears-inducing stuff. I had a lot of people sign up today to do the tunnel run. We had 41 dogs participating, and only 28 of them signed up in advance, meaning we got 13 day-of-show signups! The fun run absolutely lived up to its name. I was the timer, so I got to see each and every run. What a treat! One team included a not-quite-three-year-old boy helping the handler direct the dog around the course. It was just adorable!! The fastest dogs all completed the 12-tunnel course in less than 37 seconds. The final round for the top 5 dogs had me holding my breath--very exciting! A wonderful red-and-white border collie named Kakoe won with a time of 28 seconds and change. His handler got a $25 gift certificate to Clean Run for his efforts.

I also sold a staggering number of raffle tickets. My price list showed how many tickets you could get for $5, $10, etc., up to 20 tickets for $25. Imagine my surprise when a woman came up to me and said, "How many tickets could I get for $50?" (Answer: 50.) She bought them, too. I sure hope she wins something!

Drum roll, please: the total amount I have made so far from fun run entries (all advance entries and all day-of-show entries, which also includes many new entries for tomorrow), raffle tickets (both the "cool stuff" and the 50/50 raffles), and the coffee can donations (but NOT including any amounts from the agility photographers or Three Jacks Dog Bakery) is...








$1,067.00!!!!!

I just can't describe my amazement and gratitude at raising over $1,000 for blood cancer research in essentially one day!! So many people gave so generously and went out of their way to help me however they possibly could. I'm endlessly thankful to everyone who made this happen and humbled by the power of many people each throwing their weight behind me and saying, "You go, girl. We've got your back."

"Thank you" seems like such a small and inadequate response. I'm having trouble coming up with something that sufficiently conveys what I'm feeling. Maybe "OMG THANK YOU ALL AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL SOULS FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART EEEEEEEEEE!!!! YOU STEAMROLL ME WITH YOUR GOODNESS AND I ADORE YOU" is somewhere in the neighborhood. Sort of. Marginally. Still a bit tepid. I'm just a blubbering mess now and need to go find some more Kleenex.

And maybe get some sleep. Day 2 is tomorrow!