01/22/2022
21 January, 2022
Bill and Gail, owners of B & G Sponsored events, would like to thank all of those who worked so tirelessly to pull off a fantastic five day
give-away of toys to the children of the community, at B & G sponsored Events Second Annual Toy Give-Away. Please be sure to read to the very end to find out how many children/families we served this year.
First and foremost, we want to thank First Christian Church of Tacoma for the use of the chapel, and for stepping up to the bat and running the whole event on Tuesday morning when Bill had to be transferred to the hospital via ambulance. Thankfully, Bill's problem turned out to be minor and he was allowed back to the church later that afternoon. Thank you to all the wonderful volunteers from the church who stepped up to lend a hand. Among the helpers from the church were: Pastor Doug, Cassie and Don Tripp, Martha Redford and at least one other whose name I didn't get.
Our list of helpers for the seven days we were working at the church, this includes set up and take down time, were: Nikolaos & Francesca Sweet (3 days), Cassie Tripp (7 days), Carmen Watson (4 days), Holly Zerfass (5 days), Cat Croft (5 days), Martha Redford (2 days), Marilynn Gill (4 days), Cleo Echart (1 day), Stephanie Wadhams (1 day), Lisa Brinkley ( 1 day), Ashley Brinkley (1 day), Ava Glassburn (1 day) , Miranda Glassburn (1 day), Rachael Morgana (1 day) Rosana Letourneau (1 day), Martin Letourneau (1 day), Marina Mederos ( 1 day), Hannah Hinkle (1 day), Donald Tripp (2 days) A great big THANK YOU to all our volunteers. You are greatly appreciated.
We received donations to this event from several people: Jim from GA gave $100 towards next years event, Bob Johnson and Angela Davis from the Centennial Lions Club gave some stuffed animal and board games, Savannah, manager at our storage unit, gave us hats and gloves, and umbrellas two different times. Jennifer and Debbie McMillan donated games. Nikolaos and Francesca Sweet donated a book to the raffle. Carmen Watson donated 4 bicycles, Mary Arrington donated crocheted hats and bears. Marilee Row donated handmade pouches. Martha Redford donated several toys for both this year and next. Buddy Arcasa brought over a bunch of toys. A big thank you to Holly Merz Willard who put us in touch with a lady by the name of Amber who donated over a thousand Mermaid/dolphin tail blankets. Please forgive me if you donated something and I forgot to mention your name. Please send me an e-mail to remind me so I can get your name on this list.
So many wonderful things happened during the give-away that kept reminding me of the bible story of Jesus and the loaves of bread and fish, found in Mark and Matthew in the Bible. At one point in our give-away we found out that two other groups around us had run out of toys and closed down. Because of their closure we had an uptake in walk-In's. I asked God to have our event end like the fish and loaf story with an abundance of toys. We ended the toy give away with over FIVE bins of toys for next year. All I can say is, Thank you, Jesus, for an answer to prayer.
Talking about donations, we are collecting books, toys, games, etc. for next years give away. We received 1,165 of the cutest little bears to give away at our next event. If you have any new or gently used items that need a new home, please keep us in mind and give me a call or an e-mail so we can arrange to pick them up. [email protected] or 253-831-7894. If I don't respond to you within 24 hours please send again. E-mail is the BEST way to contact me :-) .
Let me take a moment to tell you how we ran the program before I give you the statistics for the five days. The first thing that happened is we pre-registered people. We scheduled them in half hour blocks, next year it won't be quite so long, maybe 15 or 20 minute blocks. The person would come in to the chapel and check in. They would fill out their disclaimer paperwork. If they were a walk-in they would also fill out the walk-in application. They would then receive an envelope with two tokens per child to "spend" however they liked, in other word each token equaled one gift. In their packet were free raffle tickets. They would put their name on the back of the raffle ticket and their phone number. There were several tables of raffle items. A small plastic basket was in front of each item that was to be raffled off. They could put one raffle ticket in each item or they could put all their tickets in one item. A copy of the rules for the raffle was in their packet. We drew the names at closing time the last day.
After the client was done shopping and doing the raffle, they had the option of having their items gift wrapped free of charge. Unfortunately, the last two days we did not have enough volunteers for the wrapping tables. We are hoping to have a lot more volunteers this year (2022)
Okay, here comes the really exciting information. We gave toys out to ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EIGHT (1,188) children. We served THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FOUR (364) families.
Thank you to EVERYONE who put in so much time and energy to support our give-away. Please let us know if you would like to volunteer at our third annual toy give away. We need all the help we can get!! We are already collecting toys and updating procedures.
Bill & Gail Rocheleau
B & G Sponsored Events
