One of many walk updates.

Being on the walk committee is a lot of hard work.

It's not a full time thing by any means, but by March of every year, things start to heat up for us - and do so until the event happens in June. So, for basically three months of the year, a group of 10 of us (usually less) work our assess off to throw this event and make it a success.

With the recession taking hold, we all had a feeling it might be harder to secure funding for our walk. In the past, we've started making good connections with some drug companies who have sponsored our walk - but things were starting to look pretty grim. New reps were strolling in, who we didn't know, we were having trouble contacting others, and we were getting rejected by a few in the process.

Things were looking bad.

To top it off, one of our big entertainment features of the walk (the bouncy castle for kids) was sold to an out of town business and while they are willing to come and set up and work at our walk, the fees just went up almost $200.

Then there's the face painter we've used every year. This woman goes beyond face painting and is a freakin' ARTIST. She just informed she having bunion surgery on both feet come the middle of April and will be in leg casts for two months. She's unsure how mobile she'll be but will call me back in May to let me know if she can do it or not. That's leaving things a little late for me - in case she can't do it ... then what?

So, we were all down in the dumps.

Then the drug company BAYER stepped up and said "Here's $250 for your walk." Then another "annonymous" drug company stepped up and said "Here's another $250 for your walk." Ok, we're up to $500 - that's good (we need about a $1500 turnover for our walk each year ..... talk about tight budgeting huh?).

Then the biggie came yesterday.

Aventis (another drug company) phoned me and said they'd like to give us $1000 for our walk this year. OH.MY.GOD. I almost cried. That donation alone just put us to our goal - all donations after this will go to the JDRF. I was so excited I was trying to phone everyone on our committee to let them know .... and no one was home!!! ARGH. So I phoned my husband at work - I was bursting at the seams.

Then I got another email from one of our committee members. A local business is giving us another $250 sponsorship. Honestly, after having that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach for awhile there, this is heaven.

We've also secured our first ever BBQ fundraiser on the May long weekend for the JDRF. So we're pumped for that. I've contacted the local radio station to see if their "cruiser" could come out to it and put some exposure on the radio for us on the big day.

I think things are starting to fall into place.

Except the entertainment. Must get my ass in gear on that one.

We've also desperately been trying to get tickets for the Jonas Brothers concert that is in Winnipeg on July 5th. I've been told they go on sale officially on March 27th and they estimate they'll sell out in 4 minutes.

Nick Jonas has Type 1.

I'd LOVE to be able to auction off a pair of tickets to that concert at our walk (it would bring tons of more people out to it - raising more awareness in the process). BUT, try contacting people for a donation of tickets is pretty much futile as we're discovering. And what are the chances we'll be able to actually purchase a pair if they are going to sell out in 4 minutes???

Totally sucks ass. It'll all go to charity, but people are hanging on to those tickets like grim death. *sigh*

Well, that's it for now I suppose. I'm sure I'll be updating on this as the months fly by.