A charity Halloween party consumes my life.
I would assume that we all try to do our part to contribute to the communities we serve by volunteer work, donated rides or financial support of local events.
I serve as the president of an organization known as Kern Partnership for Children and Families. Our only fundraising event of the year will be held this Saturday at a local Marriott Hotel. The partnership is a combined effort of our local Human Services Department, commonly referred to as “the welfare department,” and local businesses.
Our event is called Scary for Charity. It is an adult costume party with a silent auction, photo booth and costume contest. When you are putting on a party for 600 people, it takes many people and a lot of work to make it happen. While running a 24/7 business, it can become difficult to do either job effectively sometimes. It is like balancing spinning plates on a pole. If any of the plates should stop spinning, one is going to fall.
There are so many minute details such as obtaining a copy of the health permit from the bakery providing candied apples. We have a theatrical lighting company coming in and we even had to select the style of bat templates we wanted to use to streak across the walls during the night. The emcee must have a complete script to work off of. Another pesky task was spending an afternoon in the hotel sampling food and beverages such as “candy corn martinis” and “deviled eye balls.”
There are tickets to be sold, commercials to be booked on radio and television, not to mention live appearances almost every day for the past two weeks, making my days start as early as 5 a.m. and end at about 10 p.m. It takes a toll on the body after a while.
While all this is happening, I still have to make sure that every run goes off without a hitch and deal with drivers calling in sick and the other daily situations that present themselves. At the end of the day, I would like to think that I have accomplished good things for my community and my company, and that those I serve through business and charity feel they were well served.
-- Jim Luff, LCT contributing editor
Print | posted on Wednesday, October 26, 2011 2:05 PM