progress on walk planning

I've been spending a lot of time lately on walk-related activities. We had our August planning meeting last week and it sounds like everything appears to be coming together well.

The corporate sponsorship gathering phase is over now. I guess I had some amount of success helping Michele out here, although I was hoping for more. I was able to obtain one cash sponsorship and two in-kind gifts that we can use for raffle prizes. At least I didn't come up completely empty.

So, now my focus is on helping Diane with media and publicity. One aspect of this has been trying to contact local newspapers and generate some interest in writing articles related to the walk. So far, I haven't had too much success on this front. One obstacle I seem to be running into is that the papers I am trying to work with are local to me, but not particularly local to Bedford Hills where the walk actually takes place. But, we do draw people from these areas to the walk, and we do have people in these areas who are willing to share their stories with the media, so I haven't given up hope completely yet.

Another aspect of publicity that I am working on is contacting radio stations requesting them to air some public service announcements. Here, I seem to be making some progress. Clear Channel Hudson Valley is working with me to produce a 30-second PSA which they can air on their local stations and I've also provided them a 15-second spot produced by the Foundation. I'm going to try to contact another station or two as well.

Then, there are some of the easier aspects of publicity - adding the event to online community calendars, and distributing posters and brochures throughout the area. I've submitted to every online calendar I could find. And, I hope to get started on brochurse distribution over the next couple of days. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for posters to be delivered from the printer.

And, oh, yeah - the actual fundraising! Well, Team Teddy Bear has gotten itself off to a good start. With some offline checks that have yet to be posted to our total, we're already at $1880. Thanks to all of you who have contributed to date! Next week will be "Team Week" where the various teams who have registered will compete for chances to win some prizes. I'll post details on this later for those who might be interested.

And, finally, the Hudson Valley Renegades PKD fundraising event is now all sold out. If you are interested and missed out, please do send me your contact info anyway so I can make sure you are included next year. Since it has been so popular, I definitely intend to plan holding a similar event again in 2009 - except I'll start the planning process earlier so we can get more tickets before the game sells out.