In organizing the Kidlitosphere Conference, the one aspect that I really enjoyed working on was the charity raffle. In our previous two conferences, we had a charity component and I was excited to continue that tradition. As I talked to my teen daughter about the concept, we came up with the idea of gift baskets made up of donations from our attendees to put up for raffle. During the week, I pulled together baskets, bags, and boxes along with little “extras” for the prizes — pens, journals, candles, etc. My teen daughter crocheted decorative scarves and tiny book pillows to contribute.
On the afternoon of the conference, my husband brought in my daughters and two friends to pull the donations of the attendees into fun packages. I missed big parts of the last two sessions of the day to help, because it was a bit overwhelming. While we expected to make about ten baskets, we ended up with enough donations to make twice that many! It was tons of fun to put things together, though, and we got to exercise our creative juices in the process.
Before and during the cocktail hour, attendees looked over the prizes, bought raffle tickets, and put their tickets in bags for the ones they wanted to win. This picture is a pretty good summary, showing the tickets in one corner, the party bags to collect the tickets, the array of prizes, and the happy shoppers.
TeenReader was particularly fond of the Black & White Package, which featured a scarf she made, one of my homemade necklaces, bead jewelry made and donated by
Maureen, and some super cool books. Her best friend and helper put her raffle tickets in this package and won — quite gleefully, I might add.
I loved the Read to Me Package (even if the kid’s shirt appears to say “Ead to Me” in the photo), which included a shirt donated by
Terry, book pillows crocheted by my daughter, a tin of hot chocolate I bought at
Ross, and numerous books to share with a child. I’m trying desperately to remember who won that, so please let me know. You can also see a bit of the Halloween Basket, which featured a painted basket, a stuffed black cat, a box, and Halloween picture books.
My fifth grader worked very hard on the Holiday Package, which included books from Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. It also had snowman soap, candles, and a wooden candlestick. (
Liz, this would be some of the “stuff from my home,” as opposed to the stray socks you supposed I threw in the mix.) My daughter convinced
Jen to put her raffle tickets in for this prize and she did in fact win it.
With all this talk of winning, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, because before the winning there was the dinner. It was a lovely chance to celebrate the day of fun and relax with friends. My husband took pictures of every table, and I’ll post them to
Facebook later if anyone wants to grab them. (Unfortunately, my camera isn’t great in dim light so they aren’t stellar.) I will share one representative picture of lovely ladies Laura Lutz, Caroline Hickey, and Sara Lewis Holmes. Don’t they look happy?
After dessert, my husband and the girls drew raffle tickets and gave away the prizes. I’d love to know more of the winners, if you’d care to leave your name in the comments. I do remember
Tricia winning the
Bearport Bear donated by
Bearport Publishing and
Greg winning the Electric Company bag donated by
PBS. Many of our attendees donated books and journals and jewelry and more, which gave us an amazing raffle! We ended up collecting $550 for our two selected projects at
Donors Choose! They haven’t reached their goals yet, so you can still contribute to
Literary is Fun-damental and
It All Starts with Reading. Tell them that KidLitCon sent you!
After everything was done, we stopped for a group photo. Again, not the best camera for the job but a fun reminder of a wonderful day.
The conference weekend continued for some with an evening at the hotel bar, a Twitter-talk/post-game breakfast, or a stop at
Hooray for Books! for an author signing party. For some of us, it included all three. Overall, I was glad I got to spend so much time with so many amazing people over the weekend. It was an awesome event and I’m honored to have played a part in it.
So much so that I’ve signed on for another year. Not organizing in its entirety this time, but as consultant, promoter, and registrar for KidLitCon10, which will be in Minneapolis and will be headed by Brian Farrey of
Flux and Andrew Karre of
Carolrhoda Books! Welcome to the team!
Thanks to everyone for helping, speaking, donating, supporting, and most of all coming to KidLitCon09!
(Oh, I’m still collecting posts for a Round-Up tomorrow and I’d love to know more of our raffle prize winners. Cheers!)
Labels: KidLitosphere Conference, Thanks
KidLitCon Report: Part III
http://www.motherreader.com/2009/10/kidlitcon-report-part-iii.html
My progress in NaNoWriMo has been stalled by my supremely annoying life. I believe I have made some necessary adjustments in some areas and made my peace with other aspects, and hope to get back on the writing bandwagon today. I’m still having trouble finding my Buddies, and I know that my KidLitosphere peeps are out there. So please find me with my other user name, Mreader, and urge me on. I can say that I’m very proud of two of my buddies, Abby and Sarah, with more than seven thousand words so far. Great job!
