TheThe Stick It to Breast Cancer Lemonade/Craft Stand in Wethersfield was a big success! People were extremely generous when they stopped by and the kids did a great job explaining Unite for Her and what they do for breast cancer patients. Check out the short video we posted live Saturday morning on our Facebook page, Stick It to Breast Cancer.
The kids worked hard waving to the people in the passing cars, explaining the purpose for their lemonade/craft stand, and explaining Unite for Her. The weather was perfect for a glass of lemonade or iced tea while people browsed the crafts. The jewelry, travel pillows, and mummy luminaries were popular items. There are a few travel pillows and mummies left which we will probably bring to the Dining for a Cause night at The 99 Restaurant on September 28th and we will continue to take orders for custom stamped jewelry right up to the deadline for sending in our donation in late January.
This was the third fundraiser the Hong family hosted this year. The total donation raised by this family so far is $416. The addition of this donation brings the total donation from American Gymnastics up to $1,156 for now. We are well on our way to reaching our goal of $20,000 by January.
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We are getting ready for our next big fundraiser for Pink. This one is being hosted by a family. The Hong family is hosting a Stick It to Breast Cancer Lemonade/Craft Stand at their home in Wethersfield this Saturday (8/27) from 10 am to 2 pm. This is the second third front yard stand they have hosted this summer. The first two were spur of the moment stands during summer vacation. This time around, they are going all out. For the event this weekend, tons of planning and preparation have been involved. In addition to the jewelry that they have been making to get ready for their Dining for a Cause Night at the 99 Restaurant in September, they decided to add more crafts. They worked together to make travel pillows, mummy luminaries, boo-boo buddies (ice packs), and duct tape crafts.
In addition to social media, local news outlets have also received information about the Stick It to Breast Cancer Lemonade/Craft Stand hoping they will come visit and help share information about how the gymnasts and families of American Gymnastics are helping breast cancer patients through their acceptance of the Pink Invitational Above & Beyond Challenge to support Unite for HER.
My first blog entry focused on our first two years. This one focuses on this year.
We have begun our fundraising efforts for the 2017 Above & Beyond Challenge. There are many new things happening this year. One of the first changes that happened is that we now have a Pink Fundraising Committee. The committee has four members: Krista Paparazzo, Dorothy Bertola, Susan Donis, and me (Jennifer Hong). We have had official meetings (in person) and brainstorming sessions (mostly through Facebook messenger) to come up with a plan for this year adding more organization to the whole process. We created an informational sheet and emailed it to all of the parents at American Gymnastics so they would have a heads up about the events happening between the summer and the Pink Invitational in February. We also have two Facebook pages related to the Above & Beyond Challenge. One is strictly for families with gymnasts on the American Gymnastics team (PINK!! Help support Unite for Her!!). The second Facebook page is a public community page open to anyone (Stick It to Breast Cancer). One of the things we learned from our first two years of participation in the Above & Beyond Challenge is that not everyone is on Facebook. Several parents mentioned not knowing about an event because it was only discussed on Facebook. For that reason, we also created the website this blog is connected to, Pink Fundraising to help everyone have access to the same information at the same time. If you are new to visiting this website, please take some time to look around and tell others about it. Content is updated as often as possible. We started fundraising this year in July. We have held a Bucket Shake at Stop & Shop where the gymnasts greeted shoppers and requested donations for Unite for Her. The girls had mats available to show off some of their gymnastics skills. They also had homemade cookies, candy, and Unite for Her/breast cancer pink bracelets to give as thank you gifts to donors. We also hosted a car wash in the parking lot of American Gymnastics. It was a threatening to rain all day but we had a great turn out. We are also running a crowd funding campaign on YouCaring.com called American Gymnastics for Unite for HER for Breast Cancer. The bucket shake and car wash raised a combined total of $550 and the YouCaring collection currently has $190 giving us a grand total of $740 right now. We have three fundraisers coming up in the next couple of weeks. The first one is next Saturday. Information can be found in the Wethersfield Patch article "Stick It to Breast Cancer-Lemonade/Craft Stand to benefit Unite for Her". The second one is a Stick It to Breast Cancer T-shirt sale that will run from September 6th to the 20th. When the site is live, I will post links for it on Facebook and the webpage. The third fundraiser we have coming up is being hosted by one of our American Gymnastics families. Haley and Jodie Derwin are hosting a Party-Lite fundraiser. Click here on Party-Lite fundraiser, then click "Find Your Party" and enter Jodie Derwin. 20% of each item sold will go to Unite for Her. Additionally, another 20% of each item sold will go to Southington Community Services. Remember to keep checking the website and Facebook pages for updates. Also, if you are an American Gymnastics family and are planning any fundraisers, let me know and I can add them to the pages too. This is my very first blog post ever. Hopefully I don't bore all the readers!
As I was updating our webpage, I realized that while the information on the "About Us" page is good, it doesn't tell the whole story. I decided to write this blog to share more information with anyone who is interested enough to read it. American Gymnastics in Plantsville, CT started attending the Pink Invitational meet in Philadelphia, PA three years ago with the meet held in February of 2015. That first year for us, our Optional gymnasts (Levels 6-10) participated in the meet. One of the main things that sets the Pink Invitational apart from other meets that we participate in and makes it special is their collaboration with Unite for Her. Unite for Her is a Pennsylvania based non-profit organization that supports breast cancer patients and provides education related to healthy living. One part of the collaboration is the Above & Beyond Challenge. Each gym that participates in the Pink Invitational has the opportunity to accept the Above & Beyond Challenge. The challenge is to raise and donate at least $500 to Unite for Her to support their efforts. I am proud to say that American Gymnastics has participated in the Above & Beyond Challenge in 2015 and 2016. We are currently participating in the 2017 challenge. When we participated in the 2015 challenge, it was the first year for our gym. Our Optional gymnasts (levels 6-10) participated in the Pink Invitational. We held one main fundraiser which was a series of clinics conducted during the winter break from school. Gymnasts who attended the clinics paid a fee which was then donated to Unite for Her. The coaches donated their time to run these clinics. We were able to donate over $1000. While we were at the meet, we met and heard from several breast cancer survivors who benefited from services provided by Unite for Her. Their stories were moving and inspirational. When we were leaving, we were already thinking of what we could do for the 2016 challenge. One big change we made for the 2016 Pink Invitational was to add our Compulsory gymnasts (levels 3-5) to the group of gymnasts participating. In addition to increasing the number of gymnasts, it increased our fundraising power. We did several gym wide fundraisers including a t-shirt sale, a flip-a-thon, and a turkey shoot (raffle). We also had a few families who hosted fundraising events such as dining for a cause events at restaurants and paint nights. We raised and donated over $9,000 and ranked 6th out of the 71 teams that participated in the Above & Beyond Challenge. Our 6th place ranking earned us several perks. We received special recognition in the Pink Invitational program booklet as well as at the beginning of each session our gymnasts competed in. We also had group picture taken with MyKayla Maroney (Olympic Gymnast) and Sue Weldon (the founder of Unite for Her) after being presented with a $250 gift certificate for gym equipment. It was a fantastic experience for our whole team! We are now starting to work on the 2017 Above & Beyond Challenge now. Stay tuned to read more about us and our journey to Pink this year. |
AuthorJennifer Hong is a parent of two gymnasts at American Gymnastics and a co-chairperson for the Above & Beyond Challenge fundraising committee. Archives
November 2016
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