So Cancer Man and I came up with the best fundraising idea ever for Christmas time (not the Poo-pourri, I am talking about the OTHER genius idea)
What do you get someone for Christmas that has EVERYTHING?
A Warm Fuzzy!
This idea came from a story Wes' friend Sheri Ingham told him in kindergarten. It goes like this:
The Warm Fuzzy Story (adapted from Claude Steiner’s original tale)
Many years ago, on a little island, lived a bunch of happy people. They loved their
friendly little island with its beautiful trees, water, and sand. The islanders had a special
tradition of trading warm fuzzies with each other. Warm fuzzies were like little balls of pure
love that made everyone feel good all over.
People would offer warm fuzzies freely, and if you needed one all you had to do was
ask. Even people you didn’t know would reach into their pockets and pull out a warm fuzzy,
and just give it to you! Every warm fuzzy was like a big hug from a friend. And there were
always plenty of warm fuzzies to go around.
Everyone felt safe and loved and they all helped each other to feel safe and loved.
But one day a grouchy, grumbly, mumbly tourist came to visit the island. He didn’t
understand what everyone was doing but he was sure he didn’t like it. He kept cold prickles
in his pockets and warm fuzzies didn’t make any sense to him. So he decided that he would
tell a lie to the islanders, to convince them to stop with all that warm fuzzy business.
The grouchy tourist told the islanders that their warm fuzzies were the most precious
things in the world. He told them that instead of sharing them, they should be keeping them.
What if the world supply of warm fuzzies ran out? What would they do then?
All of a sudden the islanders began worrying and acting selfishly, keeping their warm
fuzzies to themselves. And a funny thing happened. When people stopped sharing their
warm fuzzies, people stopped receiving warm fuzzies. Instead of everyone feeling warm and
fuzzy inside, they started to feel cold and prickly inside. This made everyone kind of sad,
everyone except for that grouchy tourist that is.
Thank goodness something nice happened next. You see, one of the islanders had left
for college. She came home to visit and brought her warm fuzzies with her. When she
arrived home, she started giving warm fuzzies to everyone she saw. The islanders started to
realize what they were missing and that they had made a mistake. Holding onto their warm
fuzzies didn’t make them happier, it made them miserable. They figured out that giving their
warm fuzzies away not only made their friends happy, it made them happy too.
The good news is that we can be just like those islanders! We can give warm fuzzies,
like these cute little pom poms. But we can also give warm fuzzies that are sparkly, little,
fluffy, imaginary balls of happy. You see, when we offer a kind word or help someone to feel
better, that’s the best kind of warm fuzzy there is.
So, last year Cancer Man kept bringing up this idea, but we just couldn't find poof-balls big enough. This year, we revisited the idea, but with a more creative outlook- how can we MAKE them big enough? We ended up buying roll after roll of yarn, googly eyes, and testing out different methods until we found one that worked! The final product was about 6" in diameter!
Then we posted on Facebook:
THIS FRIDAY, SATURDAY, AND SUNDAY ONLY! Make a donation of $25 or more to Cancer Man at http://www.main.acsevents.org/goto/CancerMan and Cancer Man will ship a gift wrapped Warm Fuzzy to a gift recipient (or you!), with a note saying you donated
to Relay For Life on their behalf for Christmas. Cancer Man makes all
of these himself! Give someone a gift with some major love in it that
will help us support cancer patients, and help us find a cure for
cancer!
Simply leave the name and address of the person you
want it sent to in the "private note for the person you are supporting"
section on the donate page, and we will do the rest! Thank you all for
your support!
We thought SURELY we would have so many donors that we would be making warm fuzzies up until the last day we could ship them for Christmas delivery (and I know $25 is high, but I needed them to be substantial enough donations for me to cover the shipping costs out of my pocket).
Guess how many donors we had?
ZERO.
Yup, that's right, not a one. The good news is we have something REALLY cute to take cancer patients when we go visit them. Plus, we can always revisit the idea in the future, and I had a great time crafting with my favorite super hero :)
So, why am I telling you about our fail? Because, it is important for me to show you guys that even the big fundraisers stumble sometimes. Not every fundraiser is a smashing success. What matters is, we learn from it, find the good, and move on to the next thing. After all, you will never know what is going to work, and what isn't going to work unless you get out there and try SOMETHING.
So get out there and do it- #relaybig
With hope,
Cassi
