Getting Ready For Trivia Nite

Gerry hard at work making things Just Right!

Our group is holding its second annual Trivia Nite this Saturday night, October 23rd.   It's a really big fundraiser for our group and it's a lot of fun.    People don't realize how much time, energy and work is done for an event like this.    When you consider that our group is 100% volunteer, it's amazing how much people take care of sacrifice all in the name of helping out dogs in our community.     People have been working for months for this event and even after Saturday night, there will still need to be thank you letters that are sent out to those who helped make it a success.      Trivia Nite would not be possible without the help of Linda, Gerry and Lesa.    I wonder if anyone, besides those three, really know the amount of work they've put into this?    I have some idea, but I don't think I see the whole picture or extent of their dedication.

Baskets To Be Made!

I met with Gerry and Linda today to get some of our gift baskets assembled and ready to go.    We raffle these baskets off during our fundraising nights.    They're really fantastic prizes and everything is donated either by volunteers within our group,  by businesses we've approached and just all around fans of our group.     Today I took few hours to help get things together.    The real work is for the months leading up to this event where volunteers in our group are contacting all sorts of businesses to solicit donations to be included in these fabulous gift baskets.   They spend hours on the phone securing a hall, coordinating drinks to be delivered, organize a time for the hall to be open for decorating and set up, etc, etc, etc!

One of our newer volunteers in our group even walked the length of Main Street in St. Charles and obtained countless gift certificates and wonderful items to be included in a St. Charles basket.    She actually got so many things, we were able to create two different gift baskets from all of her hard work.

Some of the gift baskets are just created by combining single, but amazing donations that were given to our group.    One of my favorite gift baskets created today was one for a cat lover.      The container itself is a great leopard print cat carrier and it's bursting to the brim with brushes, bowls, treats, toys, a stuffed animal and $100 Woodard Cleaning gift certificate!     There's also a suite with 12 tickets for a Blues game, a wine basket, Fitz's soda and gift certificate, a gardening themed basket, quite a few "dog" inspired baskets and loads of other wonderful goodies people can buy raffle tickets for.

From what I've heard, we have sold out all of the tables for the event.   That's really exciting news.    We'll be there with additional crafts and items to benefit our group and we'll have an informational table set up to encourage people to VOTE YES ON PROP B.   :)

Who can resist me???

Oh yeah, here's a picture of Burton completely disturbing me as I was trying to type this blog.    As you can see, he's definitely feeling a lot better and cute as a button.    He can't bear to not be paid attention to, so he jumped up into my lap and then onto the computer desk.    Well, that wasn't enough?   Let's get IN FRONT of the computer!   Yep, I have a shirt on him ... looks pretty darn cute too!