A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

Fundraising

Thanks to all who donated (oh yeah, and the winner is …)

Relayers walk during the Luminary Ceremony.

Our annual Relay for Life is in the books.

And, for a change, we actually had decent weather. Despite it getting chilly at night, there was no rain (or snow) and if you kept moving, you kept warm. All in all, not to shabby.

That being said, if it was a day later, it was in the high 40s/low 50s the following night!

I initially got involved with the Relay in the memory of my father.

Anyway, the Relay was a success.

For those who don’t know the full story with the Relay, basically, teams raise money for the American Cancer Society and on the night of the event, set up around a track or something shaped like one. Then members of the team walk throughout the night. At one point, for an hour or two, the lights go out and the glow of luminaries light up the track.

I’ve taken part in this event since 2008 and am always amazed at how people give each year.

Our team, this year, was small. We had seven people and we combined to raise more than $2,500!

I was pretty stoked about that.

Personally, my account showed nearly $1,200, which I am super pumped about. For all of you who donated, please accept my thanks. I can’t express those thanks enough in words.

This disease touches millions of people. Hopefully they will eventually find a cure.

I actually started the fundraising this year a little late. That meant I also started the team late and we all got a late jump.

That didn’t seem to matter.

Our team stepped up and raised a whole heap of money. We raised more than many teams with more members. Way too cool. And to everyone who donated to me — or to others on the team — thanks so much. I am super stoked with what we were able to accomplish.

To be fair, too, we’re not all as young as we once were. Staying at these events all night is impossible. So most of us ducked out by 1 a.m. or so. The local Relay runs quite long, so many do this. When the final three of us left that night, there definitely wasn’t a member from each team walking on the track, as one is supposed to do. Alas, in my eyes, walking the track isn’t the most important thing here — raising money is. I look at what we did and I am really proud of it.

And next year, we’ll do the same.

The winner is…?

Now, let’s get on what people probably want to hear. Well, those of you who donated to the cause.

For those who donated to me or my mother’s Relay account, you were entered to win a fantastic quilt or the pillow.

Honestly, with all the donations we received, I truly wish I could give away something to everybody who donated. I really do. Alas, it’s just not possible.

Those who donated received one entry per $5 they donated. We ran all the names this morning through the Random.org generator and the winners are…

Quilt: Mike Davis

Pillow: Alma Reynolds

Congratulations to both winners, you will be contacted! And a true thanks to everyone who donated! It’s appreciated more than I can express!

Hopefully, next year, we’ll figure some great things to raffle off as well!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Final plea for Relay donations (and your last chance to win!)

Well, this is it.

My final plea. So far, it’s been quite a good fundraising season, but we can always use a few extra bucks.

My area’s Relay for Life is tomorrow (Friday) and into Saturday. Our team of seven people has already raised more than $2,000 and I’d love to see us hit, at least, $2,500. That would be something special.

So, I come to you, my blogging friends to see if you are interesting in donating. And, remember, you could possibly win something sweet. But you have no chance if you don’t donate.

You know you want to win this — so donate and have a chance!

I’ll post all the details, which I’ve had in other posts, below. But the basics are this — donate and have the chance to win a handmade quilt.

As many of you know, I have been participating in our local Relay for Life since 2008, the year after my father died after a battle with cancer. Though our team isn’t big, we usually do pretty well in raising money for this event. So I hope that will continue this year.

For every $5 you donate, you get an entry to win the quilt in the photo — it’s handmade and really sweet.

My mother is quite an amazing quilter. Last year, we ran the contest here on the blog for somebody to win a scarf. It gets bigger this year — there’s more than one prize.

The first prize is hand-quilted lap quilt. This is quite sweet. I have a lap quilt my mother made and I can say it’s warm and it’s bigger than one might expect. So this is pretty wild.

It’s 61 inches by 46 inches, so basically 5 feet by 4 feet, give or take an inch or two. It might not cover a bed, but it will definitely be worth having on the couch!

The second prize is a  lap pillow. The top is quilted and sewn onto the pillow. It’s nice as well.

Every year, I come to you, the blog readers, in hopes of soliciting donations for this team. And this is a way for me to not only get donations, but give you a chance to win something really wild, too.

Hopefully, you’ll strongly consider donating!

Details

Here’s how this will work this year.

As with last year, I will use Random.org and the generator on there to pick a winner. There will likely be a lot of entries as a couple of members are in on this as well. That way, we draw as many as possible as the goal, obviously, is to raise as much money as possible.

The second-place pillow.

For those in the United States, for every $5 you donate, you get an entry. For those in Canada, you get an entry for every $5, but we require a minimum donation of $20 because we’ll have to put more out of pocket to ship the item. For those not in the U.S. or Canada, you can still win. However, we’ll require the minimum $20 donation (which is four entries) and you’ll also be required to pay for the shipping (which can be sent directly to me via PayPal or regular mail). In the end, it’s because we’re looking to raise money!

So doing the math, it’s simple. Donate $5, get an entry. Donate $100, get 20 entries. You get it, right?

Our local relay this year runs from 6 p.m. April 26 to 9 a.m. April 27. I’ll let the contest run through noon (EST) April 28.

Don’t wait until the last second, though! If that happens, I’ve found people forget. And with this, every dollar counts when fundraising!

Any donations

The way you donate to me doesn’t matter.

You can do normal or you can by luminaries, in honor of somebody you know who is fighting or lost the battle with cancer. IF you do this, please let me know and who the name is and I will attempt to get a photo of the lit luminary for you. I can’t make promises because of how many there will be, but I usually do several laps looking at every single one and I will try and track each one down.

I thank you in advance for helping with this fundraiser.

You can donate by going to my personal Relay for Life page.

Fine print

Not that there really is any, but a couple of things.

Anybody can win, outside of those ON the team. Family members, friends, non-friends, aliens — whatever. Donate and have a chance. But members of the team can’t win.

Somebody can’t win both prizes. I will draw for the quilt first. Whoever wins that is not eligible for the pillow. Fair is fair.

I think that’s it.

Now go donate and have a chance to win!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

The plea for relay donations continues (you can win, too!)

All right, folks, you can expect this at least one more time before the Relay for Life. But I come to you in hopes you can donate to this great cause.

And, in the meantime, have a chance to win something really cool, too!

As many of you know, I have been participating in our local Relay for Life since 2008, the year after my father died after a battle with cancer. Though our team isn’t big, we usually do pretty well in raising money for this event. So I hope that will continue this year.

Even better? You an win by donating!

You can win this quilt!

For every $5 you donate, you get an entry to win the quilt in the photo — it’s handmade and really sweet.

My mother is quite an amazing quilter. Last year, we ran the contest here on the blog for somebody to win a scarf. It gets bigger this year — there’s more than one prize.

The first prize is hand-quilted lap quilt. This is quite sweet. I have a lap quilt my mother made and I can say it’s warm and it’s bigger than one might expect. So this is pretty wild.

It’s 61 inches by 46 inches, so basically 5 feet by 4 feet, give or take an inch or two. It might not cover a bed, but it will definitely be worth having on the couch!

The second prize is a  lap pillow. The top is quilted and sewn onto the pillow. It’s nice as well.

Every year, I come to you, the blog readers, in hopes of soliciting donations for this team. And this is a way for me to not only get donations, but give you a chance to win something really wild, too.

Hopefully, you’ll strongly consider donating!

Details

Here’s how this will work this year.

As with last year, I will use Random.org and the generator on there to pick a winner. There will likely be a lot of entries as a couple of members are in on this as well. That way, we draw as many as possible as the goal, obviously, is to raise as much money as possible.

For those in the United States, for every $5 you donate, you get an entry. For those in Canada, you get an entry for every $5, but we require a minimum donation of $20 because we’ll have to put more out of pocket to ship the item. For those not in the U.S. or Canada, you can still win. However, we’ll require the minimum $20 donation (which is four entries) and you’ll also be required to pay for the shipping (which can be sent directly to me via PayPal or regular mail). In the end, it’s because we’re looking to raise money!

So doing the math, it’s simple. Donate $5, get an entry. Donate $100, get 20 entries. You get it, right?

Our local relay this year runs from 6 p.m. April 26 to 9 a.m. April 27. I’ll let the contest run through noon (EST) April 28.

Don’t wait until the last second, though! If that happens, I’ve found people forget. And with this, every dollar counts when fundraising!

Any donations

The way you donate to me doesn’t matter.

The second-place pillow.

You can do normal or you can by luminaries, in honor of somebody you know who is fighting or lost the battle with cancer. IF you do this, please let me know and who the name is and I will attempt to get a photo of the lit luminary for you. I can’t make promises because of how many there will be, but I usually do several laps looking at every single one and I will try and track each one down.

I thank you in advance for helping with this fundraiser.

You can donate by going to my personal Relay for Life page.

Fine print

Not that there really is any, but a couple of things.

Anybody can win, outside of those ON the team. Family members, friends, non-friends, aliens — whatever. Donate and have a chance. But members of the team can’t win.

Somebody can’t win both prizes. I will draw for the quilt first. Whoever wins that is not eligible for the pillow. Fair is fair.

I think that’s it.

Now go donate and have a chance to win!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Donate to my Relay for Life, and have a chance to win!

It’s that time of year.

This is when I come to you all with the plea of Relay For Life.

I’m sure most of you know what Relay For Life is. Basically, it’s the American Cancer Society’s biggest fund raiser. I’ve been involved with it since 2008, which is the year after my father died of cancer.

Win this quilt!

Cancer is one of the worst diseases out there. I just hope they find a cure during my lifetime so I can know that science has done well. It’s events like this that allow the ACS to keep researching and keep looking for that cure.

Our team each year is pretty small. We collectively raise, usually, about $2,000 toward the cause. Not bad for a crew with fewer than 10 members, eh?

And as I’ve been doing, I’m also going to hold a giveaway to those who donate.

My mother is quite an amazing quilter. Last year, we ran the contest here on the blog for somebody to win a scarf. It gets bigger this year — there’s more than one prize.

The first prize is hand-quilted lap quilt. This is quite sweet. I have a lap quilt my mother made and I can say it’s warm and it’s bigger than one might expect. So this is pretty wild.

It’s 61 inches by 46 inches, so basically 5 feet by 4 feet, give or take an inch or two. It might not cover a bed, but it will definitely be worth having on the couch!

The second prize is a  lap pillow. The top is quilted and sewn onto the pillow. It’s nice as well.

Every year, I come to the blog in hopes of soliciting some donations for my Relay For Life fundraising. It’s the one time of year I really try to give and get people to give. After all, I would say the majority of us have all been touched by cancer in one way or another.

This is my way of enticing you to donate.

Details

Here’s how this will work this year.

The back of the quilt also has a design.

As with last year, I will use Random.org and the generator on there to pick a winner. There will likely be a lot of entries as a couple of members are in on this as well. That way, we draw as many as possible as the goal, obviously, is to raise as much money as possible.

For those in the United States, for every $5 you donate, you get an entry. For those in Canada, you get an entry for every $5, but we require a minimum donation of $20 because we’ll have to put more out of pocket to ship the item. For those not in the U.S. or Canada, you can still win. However, we’ll require the minimum $20 donation (which is four entries) and you’ll also be required to pay for the shipping (which can be sent directly to me via PayPal or regular mail).

So doing the math, it’s simple. Donate $5, get an entry. Donate $100, get 20 entries. You get it, right?

Our local relay this year runs from 6 p.m. April 26 to 9 a.m. April 27. I’ll let the contest run through noon (EST) April 28.

Don’t wait until the last second, though! If that happens, I’ve found people forget. And with this, every dollar counts when fundraising!

Any donations

The way you donate to me doesn’t matter.

The pillow, for second place.

You can do normal or you can by luminaries, in honor of somebody you know who is fighting or lost the battle with cancer. IF you do this, please let me know and who the name is and I will attempt to get a photo of the lit luminary for you. I can’t make promises because of how many there will be, but I usually do several laps looking at every single one and I will try and track each one down.

I thank you in advance for helping with this fundraiser.

You can donate by going to my personal Relay for Life page.

Fine print

Not that there really is any, but a couple of things.

Anybody can win, outside of those ON the team. Family members, friends, non-friends, aliens — whatever. Donate and have a chance. But members of the team can’t win.

Somebody can’t win both prizes. I will draw for the quilt first. Whoever wins that is not eligible for the pillow. Fair is fair.

I think that’s it.

Now go donate and have a chance to win!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Thank you to all who donated

The Relay was again successful!

Thank you.

This post goes out to all of you who donated to my page for the Relay For Life.

Despite frigid (and below freezing) temperatures this past Friday/Saturday, we endured and stayed as long as we could. Our area Relay runs from 6 p.m. Friday until 8 or 9 a.m. on Saturday.

I made it until about 3:30 a.m. before I had to go home, take a quick nap and warm up. I returned at about 5:45 a.m. to help Darren tear down our tent and clean up everything. We chatted with a few others as the sun started to warm things up a bit. I finally got back to bed around 8 a.m. and slept into the early afternoon.

The Relay can really wipe you out for a weekend with the all-night event and then having to catch up on sleep and such.

Alas, it’s for a good cause. And well worth doing.

Each year, I set my goal for $500. And with such a small team, our goal is usually $1,000. We reached both this year.

For those of you who donated, again, thank you. My personal goal was well met with a late push Thursday night and I ended with $610 raised. The team did well, too, as we raised $1,950. I’m not sure if that includes everything we gave that night, though, so I’m hoping we’ll be over the $2,000 mark once they add everything up.

In the end, that’s what it’s all about.

The event is to Celebrate. Remember. Fight back.

And, to raise money to try and find a way to beat the hell out of cancer.

I hear so often people say that they relay because they can. I do as well. But I also do it as a way to give back and, hopefully, be able to see a cure for this disease in my lifetime. Will that happen? Who knows. But I can continue to hope.

And try and raise money.

So thank you again. Many times over.

As for the raffle… oh yeah! I didn’t forget! I’ll be going through, adding up number of entries and running it through the Random.org randomizer in the next week or so and then will announce the winner via e-mail and on the blog. I have the scarf ready to send out, so I will be announcing that soon!

Until then… thank you!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!