My First Fundraiser

The Cause

Over the years I've donated and contributed to various charities but never before I was part of any fundraiser event myself. A couple of weeks ago myself and a few friends got together and decided to organize a fundraiser to raise money for a noble cause. We were inspired by a close friend who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma last year. Multiple myeloma is a form of blood cancer for which currently, there is no cure. However, now more than ever, there is hope through promising drugs in the pipeline. It was our goal to help raise money for myeloma research so that there are treatment options available to our friend and other patients when they need them.

The Planning

Our goal of organizing this event was very simple, involve as many people as possible and raise as much money as possible while keeping the event fun filled and memorable. We had a little more than one week to plan the event. The first thing we did was to form a core group of active participants comprising Sanjiv, Bala and Purnima. This group was responsible to plan, coordinate and execute this event with help and support from so many other friends. The planning started with a brainstorming session, we went over various options that we could think of narrowing down to few that we could execute within the given constraints. We also sought advice from experienced people with prior experience hosting such events. After several meetings we decided to host a dinner and invite a close knit group of our nears and dears. A night before we were also able to make a few customized fundraiser T-Shirts for the team. Our initial thought was to plan an outdoor event but the weather did not cooperate and we had to find an indoor place to host the dinner. We were fortunate to find a Club House on a weeks notice, a big thanks to Maneesh for his help. This event would not have been possible without a dedicated effort from the core group. Their management skills came in very handy, we divided the tasks among ourselves. A Wiki was created to track the status of tasks in an easily sharable way. The final week of planning was little hard on me since Madhu was in Canada on a business trip but her moral support made a huge difference in making this event successful.

The FUNdRAISER Dinner

The fundraiser day arrived within no time and we were as prepared as one could be. We reached at the club house 30 minutes before the scheduled time to take care of the setup. The snacks, donation, auction tables were all set well in time. People started coming in around 6:15PM and the hall was full within 30 minutes. We had activities for participants of all age groups, the activities included Auction, Bingo and Raffle. These fun activities turned out to be a big hit. Some unknown, local kids did not hesitate joining the fun and one such lucky boy happened to be the winner in both bingo and raffle. We had no idea what our target should be, we started with about $2500 in mind which looked a bit high initially. Once the event started the generous donations kept pouring in and we exceeded our goal with no problem. Things kept becoming better from there, the Club House management graciously waived the Reservation fees considering the great cause. We are very thankful to Madras Cafe for taking care of feeding the donors by donating delicious food.

The Race day in San Francisco

The next thing for us was to participate in the MMRF 5K walk in San Francisco. The event was planned for April 23, 2006. We were looking for forward to this event with our kids. The event was slated to start at 8:30AM, the most challenging part was to wake up at 6:00AM in order to reach there in time. As expected it took a little longer for us to get out of the house, the gas tank was also empty just when we needed it taking another extra 10-15 minutes. We reached at the parking lot couple of minutes before 8:30AM (just in time for the race) but after coming out of the car we realize it was about ½ a mile away from the start line. We could hear the start announcement of the race from a distance while walking towards the start line. Juni, my 6 year old son, got tired even before we could get to the start line, on the positive side this extra walk helped us warm up for the race. We met Sanjiv and Sanjana there who were there already, we quickly put on the Race T-Shirt and started the walk. It started drizzling exactly when we started the walk, I guess this was Go's way to participate in the race.

We were very confident to be the last group to reach the finish line given that we were the last group to start and we had the most young kids among all groups. The walk route was very scenic, we could enjoy the beautiful views of Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and down town skyline. Take a look at some of the pictures to see it yourself. The kids could hardly finish the first mile and started complaining. Kanchan had to take them back to the tent by taking a short cut. The rest of us suddenly became free and picked up the pace. We quickly got past couple of teams and took a sigh of relief as we knew for sure that we'll not be the last group to arrive at the finish line. Purnima decided to jog for a while and met us at the 3 mile mark. In no time we reached the finish line and took some refreshments. The most pleasant surprise came when the name of the team with largest money raised was announced. The whole team was shocked with joy to hear that “Team Sanjana” raised most money for this event. We were proud of what we had done for the great cause. The feeling of accomplishment we had on the stage receiving the award was second to none. We raised appx. 4 time of our original goal of $2500. Again, it could not have been possible without support from our friends and their generous donations. The event was closed on a positive note and an inspiration to do something bigger and better next year...