Good morning folks! I am writing this the day after our fundraiser and yes, I am still tired. Of course, the early morning storms didn’t help. When the cold front finally came through at 2 AM, I heard a very unusual thunder clap, so I got up to see if a tree had blown over, but there was no wind. So I got on my tablet and watched the front pass then went back to bed.
Of course you all know how hot it was Friday. We sure can pick good dates for a fundraiser. Hottest day of the year in a building with most of the AC not working yet. We had planned to have the singing portion of the evening outside, so we set up a tent. But once again, we needed to go with God’s plan.
We may never know the whole reason why God chose not to allow us to have our quartet show up. I suppose it would have been more miserable outside than we realized. The quartet was planning to come, and we were going to go with a shorter program, but at literally the last minute, we were notified that one of the member’s wives had gone into labor. We knew it was going to be close. A couple of us were setting up the chairs in the tent when we got the news, so we stopped right away. A while later, a guy stopped by with a couple younger boys, so they helped out a lot by loading up the chairs and bringing them back inside.
We were prepared for the heat in a few ways, though. Earlier, we turned down the AC in the office, so we would have a real cold room for people to get some relief. A couple days before, we also started running a large fan that pulled cooled air out of the kitchen and blew it into the gym. With the high ceiling in there, it really wasn’t bad.
Another reason none of us on the committee were upset about the loss of our singing, was that our food service was way busier than we had anticipated. Originally, the idea was to just serve in the gym. But just several days before, we got the idea to have carry-outs, after some inquiries. We only put that option on our church sign, Facebook, and the website, but that was enough!
I had volunteered to handle the carry-out side because I figured since we were so late letting people know, we might get 4 or 5 people all evening. Boy was I off! I guess I failed to reckon with the way Mennonites can get word spread. About two minutes after we opened, we had a whole line of cars waiting! We actually had to move another complete food service table setup to the carry-out area, and in the end I think we had 10 people helping, and even then we were getting behind a couple times. Thanks everyone for pitching in! I am pretty sure we served over 200 meals there. We even had to send someone to get more containers. We did run out of a couple menu items right at the end.
I never really got to see personally how the evening went, because I was sitting in one place trying to keep up. I do know someone reported that the gym was pretty much full at one point. Hopefully everyone enjoyed themselves, even with the shortened program. We did get one classroom set up with student desks and chairs, to give people an idea what it would look like.
We did raise just a couple dollars short of $14,000. We haven’t had our meeting yet to go over all the expenses, but many were covered by donations. Which brings me to the important part of this post.
There isn’t enough time to adequately thank everyone for their contributions, donations, and help with not only this fundraiser, but the whole school project. It has just been amazing to see the amount of interest and community support. And interest is worth more than you might think, to those doing the work. Even if people are unable to help in financial or material ways, knowing they like the whole idea is of much value.
If you have helped in ANY way, this is a personal thank you to you! There have been some very creative ways that people have helped. I know there are many people out there who are in “school mode” that are just keeping an eye out for anything we might need. It’s kind of like when you buy a new vehicle, all of a sudden you notice all the others like yours. One recent example is a lady who was traveling in another state, went to a thrift store, and found a nearly complete flannel-graph set, already cut out, for $10. This set sells new for $300, and it looks like it was never used. Thanks for grabbing that!
Well, I could go on and on about stories like this, but I have work to do. I still cannot believe the fundraiser is over. Since we planned it with kind of short notice, it has been really intense. Tons of messaging back and forth, running here and there, you name it. Maybe it will hit next week when I don’t have to do anything. But it was time for it, because every member of the funding committee will be glad to get their lives back. At least for a while. I even drove around and collected all my roadside signs last night on the way home, so I wouldn’t have to do it later. I figured while I was tired anyway….
At this point, our biggest need is for more funds to replace the tattered shingle roof with steel that will last a long time. If you want to help with a financial donation, you can go on our website, www.uccs.school, there is a Donate button there, or you can contact us for more information. If you would like to make a totally anonymous donation, there is a button on our website to go through the Anabaptist Financial group. You can direct them to send your money to us, and your identity remains private.
