An Evening of Wishes

Wine & Wishes 2014

Article in Local Bozo by Jane Van Arsdale

WINE & WISHES MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE AT PIER SIXTY
Events — 27 March 2014
Blog: Wine and Wishes 2014

In the midst of one of the most bitterly cold evenings in the month of March, hundreds of guests would need good reason to trek out to the waterfront at Chelsea Piers and on Wednesday night the ballroom space at Pier Sixty delivered just that. The 11th Annual event titled “Wine & Wishes” turned a fundraising benefit for the Make-A-Wish Foundation for Metro and Western New York into an all out gala filled with hungry foodies and wine enthusiasts, all dressed to the nines with wallets in hand in support of the organization’s cause. The four hour evening would feature select fare courtesy of some of Manhattan’s most esteemed chefs, hundreds of exceptional wines for tasting, a massive silent auction with memorabilia, select wines and a live auction that boasted some experiences unavailable elsewhere.

There is perhaps no charitable organization more widely recognized nationally for performing a greater good than Make-A-Wish, serving to quite literally grant wishes for children with life-threatening medical conditions. The lasting effect stimulated by making these wishes come true can provide unparalleled inspiration and one that can help strengthen the human spirit for both the children themselves and their families. There was nary a dry eye in the house as a short video was shown prior to the live auction where professional athletes from the NFL, NASCAR and Major League Baseball allowed these kids to have an unforgettable and special experience in their young lives – making their dreams come true.  Since inception and including Wednesday night’s “Wine & Wishes” event have raised upwards of $6 million for the Metro New York chapter of Make-A-Wish, allowing them to grant some 525 wishes to different children.  The funds raised during the course of this evening would serve the same purpose: making dreams come true.

The evening’s first two hours showcased some of New York City’s most renowned chefs doling out some truly exceptional dishes- ones that would rival the finest served at any similar food tasting. You can find pictures of some of our favorite tastes from “Wine & Wishes” below, but there are some that words and photographs can simply do no justice. In the VIP area, the “Roasted Diver Scallop” from Morimoto was in a class all its own. Served on an oversized shell plate, the tender scallop was immersed in smoked brown butter and black truffles yielding a decadently tender dish. Catch’s crab, salmon and miso honey “Catch Roll,” The General’s avocado and sweet chili filled “Chinese Chicken Tacos” and Strip House’s sensational “Waygu Strip with Marrow Mustard Flan” were each excellent in their own right, washed down with some choice wines like Silver Oak’s ripe 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon” and Wagner’s Caymus 2011 “Cabernet Sauvignon,” a big powerful red.

Though not all guests had VIP access, there was still more than enough food and great wine to go around the remainder of the space. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the room full of knowledgeable wine drinkers seeking out and sipping upon these anticipated wines. Our palates danced for likes of the 2011 Laguna “Chardonnay,” the 2012 William Hill “North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon” and our favorite of the evening, the 2012 Laetitia “Pinot Noir Reserve du Domaine, Arroyo Grande,” a veritable steal at just $35 as a relatively full-bodied and complex vintage. With refilled wine glasses in hand, we resumed sampling more of the fantastic dishes being doled out by each restaurant. Highlights included La Cenita’s “Seared Tuna Taco” that brought out a bevy of unique flavors topped with pickled cucumber and mustard seeds, with a cotija crema that brought everything together nicely. BLT Steak’s piping hot “New York Strip” was perfectly salted and charred atop a creamy green leek-yukon mashed potato bed, while Quality Italian brought a “Dry-Aged Porterhouse Agnolotti,” filling each pasta pouch with savory bits of steak. Finally, we grabbed a “House Veal Meatball” mixed with pork sausage and beef from Asellina and a far different “Chicken Francese Meatball” courtesy of perennial party place Public House to cap off an evening of exquisite eats.

As the live program began, a sea of guests flocked toward the stage to grab seats for the aforementioned video package and to welcome emcee and CBS2 News Anchor Chris Wragge to the podium. Wragge perfectly paced the live auction with the help of guest auctioneer and co-radio voice of the New York Jets Greg Buttle who had great command of the room and kept the auction rolling and the fundraising growing. Foodie Magician Josh Beckerman was an added plus, performing a brief set of food related tricks on Charles Merinoff, Chairman and CEO of The Charmer Sunbelt Group, responsible for presenting this year’s “Wine and Wishes.” Though Make-A-Wish is a group that already resonates with much of the public, it’s seeing these kids in action and seeing the actual results of the organization that make attending a charitable event like “Wine and Wishes” far more fulfilling than the exceptional array of wines and food being served. It’s satisfying in a completely different way.

- Jane Van Arsdale

http://www.localbozo.com/2014/03/wine-wishes-make-dreams-come-true-at-pier-sixty/

Long Beach Polar Bear's Super Bowl Splash

So apparently, it's a thing - and for the past 15 years crazy people have been jumping in the Atlantic Ocean in the dead of winter to raise half a million for Make-A-Wish. According to CBS “It is bone-chilling cold. It’s painful, it’s very painful.” Fan-freakin-tastic, right?

At first, I absolutely refused to participate but then I thought: since this is the only time of year where we reach out to our personal network to support us, how about - I'll do it if I raise $500. That's where you come in.

If you want to see me getting tortured, feel free to make a gift. $1, $5, $10, whatever - donors at any level will receive a video to re-live my horror over and over again. (Note: Eddie is doing it for free! LOL)

CLICK HERE TO MAKE A DONATION

Historically, I've tried to steer clear of asking for donations for the many nonprofits I've worked for - but donating to Make-A-Wish is truly worth it. The organization is run so well, your dollar goes so far, and both are really dedicated to the kids. While everyone was watching Bat Kid, other children were being inspired by Hillary Clinton or meeting the REAL Santa Claus - and each experience was just as special.

In the past three months, I've participated in three wishes and met so many now-grown wish children that I've witnessed the power of a wish to change lives. Regardless, I'm dedicating my days and volunteering overtime to grant the wishes of children - but I'll only offer up my frozen limbs with your help! Click and donate - it's happen'n Superbowl weekend - blizzard or shine!

1.21.2014
I reached $200 today! If I reach $250 by midnight (EST) tonight,
I'll go out in the snow in my swim suit tomorrow morning to practice for the big day! LOL

Post by Michelle Wong.

Thanks to the following donors Cheryl Ann Asico, Jenn Wong, Jenny Ng, Colleen del Rosario, Christina Mojica, Kristina Huey, Gustavo Torres, Jacqueline Cavanaugh, Connie Sam, and Vivian Do for helping me reach my goal. Too bad I was only at $450 the day of the event and didn't have to go all the way in!! Muahahah!!!


 

America SCORES National Poetry SLAM!

For a little over a year and a half, I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing America SCORES. I often wonder how many times per day I write the words "America SCORES" as I write grants or login to things with my email address. As I sit at home on Saturday night, my boyfriend Eddie is sporting the America SCORES National Poetry SLAM! t-shirt to sleep. Dax knows it's time for a walk when one of us grabs the America SCORES sweatshirt. The organization is always on my mind - and I wonder how many times I've written it in this blog thus far. This is all to preface what I really want to write about - the America SCORES National Poetry SLAM!. We're just about wrapping up feedback from the committee, the tasks force member, the chaperones, the executive directors - but none of that matters to me because I'd like to see any other combination of three people accomplish what we did that weekend - and not kill each other like I'm surprised we didn't. It was one hell of a weekend!

I spend about six months out of the year planning this extraordinary event - and it's the best part of my job. As a national organization, we only get three days out of the year to remotely perform direct-service and to really see the self-esteem and confidence shine as a result of this power of poetry - something we so often brag about but rarely actually experience. I mean, I've made many a visit to a classroom or soccer field - but it's simply not the same when the kids don't know who you are and you know so little about them. For three days, we get to know each child, their temperaments, their humor and watch the shy get comfortable and the distrustful attitudes melt away. The experience was similar to MYEEP's Counselor in Training retreat - but, elementary school students don't have that weird tendency to racially segregate the way high schoolers do. They are purely innocent, oddly obedient, and extremely grateful - and that just makes the entire experience even more fulfilling.

Being my second National Poetry SLAM!, I was excited to actually know what I was doing and to make very real and intentional improvements. I will admit that there is a lot I didn't know about the NYC charity benefit - but either way I knew I could plan one hell of an event! For example, I went to a workshop that was about what you should be doing the day after an event - which if you asked me April 17th, 2012 - I would have said SLEEP. It was here I learned one of our many 2012 mistakes - the honoree selection and cultivation should start 8-10 months before an event, not 4 months and I began to really understand the expectations of the role: to raise money (at least in the eyes of New York City-zens). In 2012, our honoree actually ended up costing us money - but that is a story for another time. Among the improvements to the honoree selection process was the timely gathering and effective management of an event committee and actual engagement of the honoree to our program. With the help of one of my favorite board members, we selected our guests of honors early. This gave me a few months to deepen their understanding of our program, take them out to see the program, and support them in fundraising efforts. This led to a new partnership with the NY Cosmos who made this awesome video and promoted the event.



What most people don't realize about the National Poetry SLAM! is that it is both a program event (to reward our best kids) and a fundraising event (to raise a pretty hefty chunk of our operating budget). That means, that we're not only spending 6 months designing marketing materials, selling sponsorships and tickets, writing press releases, and getting silent auction items - we are also buying plane tickets, ground transportation, reserving hotel rooms, training chaperones, getting parent RSVPs and planning meals. And by we, I mean our team of 3 with the help from a task force and committee. It also means that the weekend before the event, I could be (and was) sending last minute RSVPs to the venue or handling program printing disaster - or going door-to-door to kids rooms to participate in evening rehearsals, making sure there is enough orange juice or bagels in each room, and staying up til midnight making a slideshow of the weekend for the kids to watch before the show.

For the first five years, the youth experience was primarily managed by program staff in Chicago - experts in putting together a pretty seamless program with limited rehearsal time. The sixth year, I lent my services and by the seventh, we were on our own. It was Christmas week when I had a huge breakdown - I could not fathom doing everything. I needed to focus on fundraising because we were projecting a $30,000 deficit with the unfortunate loss of a pretty important board member. Being the only person present for all parts of the participant weekend experiences, I took an advisory role in supporting a task force of staff from around the country and directing an intern to manage logistics. This step back allowed me to continue working on other arms of development such as submitting grants, sending corporate proposals, and producing our annual report and national magazine.

Ticket sales and donations account for almost 20% of the fundraising revenue. In 2012, we introduced two social media campaigns which, though extremely time intensive, I love! One would count down the days to the event by featuring one of the select students each day. To sell tickets, this was was supplemented with weekly e-mail newsletters (like this one) and four press releases (1, 2, 3, and 4). The combination of these campaigns and honoree efforts increased ticket sales revenue and made up almost 25% of our anticipated fundraising deficit. The other campaign leverages the social network of our newly inspired audience and uses their photos from the evening for a weeklong fundraising challenge. Since I could anticipate these campaigns, I was able to streamline and schedule daily posts on Facebook and entered (and won) a contest for free photo booth service that would essentially operate the second campaign for me (LA Photo Party). An incredible event committee inspired a visual fundraising goal that quintupled night-of donations and doubled post-event donations overall. 

Historically, almost 80% of the funds raised from the event are sponsorships. Knowing we were losing some, finding new ones was extremely important. Over the summer, we had done a ton of research on companies who's current charities are similar to ours - and also learned that funding applications need to be done at least 6 months prior to the event. I spent a great chunk of October, filling out applications and submitting them to the black hole of rejection. I know that the application process is extremely ineffective - so I PDF'd all my proposals, checked the company list to my linked in network, and worked with board members to get these proposal seen and supported by someone within those companies. The process yielded no new sponsorships - but certainly got us in the door with several companies that we'll continue to build relationships with throughout the year. I'm pretty excited that my strategy worked - and hopeful that if not SLAM! related, we'll find some way to work with these companies that suits their needs and benefits our sites nationwide!

The night of the event was actually less stressful (perhaps coming from the crazy weekend of babysitting 30 kids!) It is wholly complicated - comprising of a VIP cocktail hour for sponsors with a silent auction, 1 hour poetry slam show, and a dessert reception "after party" (which took place on the NYSE Trade Floor.) I implemented a few learnings from the past year. 

1. I made a huge effort to make the sponsors feel like VIPs. The cocktail hour was just for them. They had reserved seating with special gift bags. There was a minor hiccup of nonVIP guests sneaking in before their admission time - resulting in a shortage of cocktails and some discomfort with low-income parents feeling like charity amid a primarily white corporate mixer. As guests of corporate sponsors, they didn't pay to be there so I wanted to make sure they walked away feeling so great that they'd make a gift. 
2. The Silent Auction is, for whatever reason, a hot topic. Previously, it hadn't made that much money for how much time spent planning it. This year, I decided not to spend any time planning it. Our committee did an amazing job bringing in the items - and they raised more than we thought. I did make a very intentional decision to provide a Silent Auction brochure such that, if a guest was bored at any point during that one hour (between 6pm-7pm) it was the only thing they would have in their hand. They would receive program books at 7pm.
3. The feedback from last year was that the fact that this was a fundraiser was not clear enough. After attending CFY's charity benefit as a guest of Southwest Airlines, I saw how they really hit the emotions in the ask. (They honored a parent - but the award was given by the child of the parent, who was introduced by the child's teacher, who was introduced by the principal. Each expressing gratitude and sharing the impact of CFY from a every level.) The program wreaked of desperate pleas for donations - I'm not sure how I feel about it. The numbers were strong, but I don't know. I would have liked to weave in more tear-jerking and less asking - letting the emotional appeal speak for itself more.

A huge part of the post-event must-do was the follow up. I remember, April 16, 2012, when the doors opened at 6pm sharp - a mass influx of people bum-rushed the door - sweeping past the registration table and photo booth. For the 6-7pm cocktail hour, I was all over the place dealing with late volunteers and  technical difficulties with the photo booth. This was the first time I would meet our affiliate leadership from the 14 cities so among meeting them and sponsors, I didn't catch anyone's names or learn anything about anyone. At the end of the night, we walked away with no way to know who attended and no way to contact these new fans of our program. Months later, I volunteered at World Cares Center benefit - I was assigned a special guest and my only jobs were to make sure their attendance was announced to the Executive Director and take care of them the rest of the night. Of course, 1 hour is not enough time for one Executive Director to meet and get to know everyone - so I adapted this process and assigned our volunteers to do the announcing to affiliate Executive Directors. They, in turn, would do that care-taking and introductions to our National Executive Director. This allowed for extremely personalized follow ups and introductions - as well as accountability. For example, I could ask "Who is this in this picture" and someone would know.

Ultimately, and to my surprise, we met our fundraising goal!

If I learned anything about development over the past year and a half - it really is about relationships. Someone I met on twitter, The World Cup Project, who was interested in our September event volunteered to help us with video needs - saving us $3,000 in videographer expenses! My past interns were my key volunteers for the evening. Our current intern, applied for an internship in August of last year, got a job elsewhere, was a key volunteer for our September event, came back to volunteer - in addition to his incredible leadership and support throughout the weekend, he also got us $12,500 in PR Newswire press release distribution services that helped our releases reach almost 300 million views!

I also do a ton of learning at charity events - so you can imagine my excitement for Make A Wish's upcoming benefit at their NJ Castle. I don't go to NJ (ever) but this is soooo going to be worth it!

To be clear, this is my personal reflection of the event from the trenches. It is truly an amazing event for an organization that is doing really great work. The official event information and full video can be found at www.americascores.org/nps2013. 

Also, you can support me by making a gift here: www.americascores.org/donate

An art project for a snowy saturday mornin'

Post by Michelle Wong.

The Great America SCORES Soccer Dribble

October 22, 2012: World Record Academy recognizes The Great America SCORES Soccer Dribble

October 4, 2012: Photo on The University News of St Louis University

September 30, 2012: Breaking a Guinness World Record in The Northwest Update

September 30, 2012: World Soccer Dribble Record Set: America SCORES draws 2149 the action in video chronological order  by Zennie Abraham, founder of Zennie62

September 30, 2012: NASL, America SCORES and the Red Bulls 4-1 Triumph in This is Cosmos Country

September 30, 2012: National Poetry Slam Winner Plays Soccer on NBC Bay Area

September 30, 2012: World Soccer Record Set in CBS St Louis

September 29, 2012: Mayor McGinn of Seattle has proclaimed September 29th, 2012 as America SCORES Seattle Day and calls upon all the people of Seattle to observe this day, and to celebrate the accomplishments and changes we have created over the past 10 years.

September 29, 2012: Soccer fans in St. Louis will try to break the synchonized soccer dribbling record on Saturday on NBC St Louis

September 29, 2012: Seattle Times Media Center features Nimo Mohamed, 9, center, and Ariana Valdez, 8, both of Seattle, do warmups for The Great America SCORES Soccer Dribble at Seattle University’s Championship Field.

September 28, 2012: Lou Fusz Soccer Club Night at SLU Homecoming to Feature World Record Attempt, Select Free Admission in STL Today

September 28, 2012: Get Your Kicks And Help Set A World Record on CBS St Louis

September 27, 2012: Kenny Watches World-Record Dribble Attempt on Kickin’ it with Kenny, FOX 8 Cleveland

September 27, 2012: There may not be hockey this weekend, but there is America SCORES Bay Area

September 24, 2012: America SCORES Milwaukee to help set soccer record in On Milwaukee.com

September 24, 2012: Great America Scores Soccer Dribble Set for Saturday announced in UIC Flames website

September 24, 2012: Students set out to make soccer history on NBC St Louis

September 23, 2012: America SCORES Soccer Dribble: Ticket Package on LivingSocial.com

September 21, 2012: Alonzo And SCORE Kids on FOX 2

September 18, 2012: in The Sacramento Bee

September 18, 2012: Soccer Communities Unite to Support in Atlanta Soccer News

September 18, 2012: HeraldOnline.com serving York, Chester, and Lancaster Counties

September 18, 2012: in HCI Market news, blog and business solutions resource

September 18, 2012: in The Life Ledger blog by Cris Harshman

September 14, 2012: St. Louis Scores leads national effort to break dribbling world record

September 13, 2012: The Great St Louis Soccer Dribble featured in St Louis Kids Magazine

September 10, 2012: The Great America SCORES Soccer Dribble to Attempt Guinness World Record

September 6, 2012: Ladue News Society Pages

September 2, 2012: Soccer Players in Cleveland to Help Set a Guinness World Record

September 1, 2012: on KFNS 590 Sports Talk Radio

September 1, 2012: on NPR in St Louis

August 31, 2012: Group Attempts to Break World Soccer Dribble Record on FOX 2

August 27, 2012: Grammy Award-Winning Songwriter/Producer Alonzo “Zo” Lee to Record with Students in St. Louis

September 15, 2011: World Records Academy

September 14, 2011: Soccer dribblers set Guinness World Record

September 12, 2011: Poet-Athletes Break World Record in St. Louis

September 4, 2011: National Team member Sauerbrunn returns to home turn for appearances on stltoday.com

August 25, 2011: Fox News 2′s feature on the first annual Great St. Louis Soccer Dribble to benefit America SCORES St. Louis.

August 12, 2011: Players sought for Great St. Louis Dribble

August 6, 2011: KFNS 590 Interview with Pete Spanos Founding Board Member America SCORES St. Louis

August 4, 2011: St. Louis Set to Break World Record on The Floodplain Footy

Adventures of Dax Adobo

Haven't been up to too much besides working and saving money for the big move! But we always find the time to walk the Dax and his sidekick Tara - and waste an hour making a video about it.

Summer programs are ending one by one, bringing me a little closer to freedom! You'll be reading about my summer very soon - despite a 300% increase in work load, it still could not be as crazy as last year.

NYC in 16 days!