GS meeting

This year I’ve been asked to be on our Great Strides planning committee for the Sacramento chapter and I am so excited! I feel like I’m finally in a stable emotional place to participate. The first year, Ben was only two months old and we were fresh off a 3-week hospital stay. I was lucky my hair was brushed let alone able to make the walk. Last year, I knew what to expect and was more prepared. Well, this year is going to be the kick off year of many great walks to come!

I attended our first meeting last night and was excited to learn that I was the 7th top walker (out of roughly 800) earning almost $3,000 towards my personal goal. Even better, our team, Ben’s Brigade, came in 5th (out of 65) earning almost $6,000!!! Woohoo!! It’s all thanks to you and the power of networking! All walkers on BB donated and worked at getting other donations. We are in this years pamphlet and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I already have one saved to show Ben. I can’t wait til he’s older and I can show him how much people loved and supported him. Seeing those results are just what I needed to get me even more fired up for this year!

We talked about many things and I came to realize, A LOT goes into planning GS. We have a coordinator through the CFF and 4 other moms to help out. I got lots of great ideas on how to raise money for our team besides asking people to just donate. My goal is to always make the “Top 10 walkers/teams” every year from here on out. I have a couple tasks which include walking into Kohls department store, talking to the manager and asking them to have some employees donate their time and volunteer during the walk. Five years ago, I would have been mortified to do this but since I’m walking in and asking them to support Ben, I couldn’t be more confident.

This year, I’m going to be making a banner for our team that we can use every year. I’m also going to start getting donations for our raffle. If anybody in the Sacramento area (or anywhere!) has items or services to donate to the raffle, we’d appreciate it! Ryan is going to try and get some of his Dentists to donate whitening services, which would be huge.

As you can tell, I’m really excited about everything this year. It feels good to be behind the scenes more and get involved. I’m also working on recruiting people for their wine tasting event, Spring for a cure, that will  be held in Folsom in April. If you are interested in the event, click on the link to register.

Lots more details to come!!