Celebrity Scoop Night

Last June the boys and I were at Maggie Moo's early one morning.  It was just us and the manager at the time.  I remember her being very friendly and talkative and so I decided to ask her about a CF fundraiser.  She was really interested in the idea and very supportive.  She gave me her card and told me to call when we were ready to do one.

Fast forward to January 2013 and I have renewed our Great Strides team for the year.  Of course, then the walk coordinator calls and we start talking fundraisers.  I mention the Maggie Moo's opportunity and decide that I should try to make it work.  So, I posted on Facebook asking for help in locating a local "celebrity", someone that people would be willing to see scoop ice cream.  Within 2 hours I got a couple of responses and took my post down because I realized that I was getting more and more committed to this fundraiser and I hadn't called Maggie Moo's yet.  So, at that point, that's what I did.  Only to find out that Maggie Moo's didn't exist anymore.  It had been bought out by a local ice cream shop--the Colorado City Creamery.  I was told to call back the next morning to talk to the manager.  So, the next morning I made the call.  It was the same manager that I had previously spoken to, thank goodness, but she wasn't sure how the new owner would feel about a fundraiser.  So, I typed out a nice email with lots of information and a link to our Great Strides page as well as the possible "celebrities" that we were recruiting for the evening.  And then we waited.

After 4 days the manager got back to me and told me that they were willing to participate and the the CFF would receive 20% of the proceeds from the night.  Perfect!  So, now to find a date.  Here's where it got interesting.  The ice cream shop was willing to offer us a Tuesday or Wednesday night in January or February--only.  Our possible celebrity, World Champion wrestler and MMA fighter Joe Warren, was not available in February.  So we settled on Tuesday January 29th, just 13 days out.  I was stressed!

At about this same time I received a phone call from a local TV sportscaster.  He was interested in helping us and coming out for the event as well.  He even thought he might be able to do a live broadcast from the Creamery!  Wow--awesome!

So, I quickly designed some flyers and started spreading the word.  I used facebook, took flyers to local martial arts studios, and emailed every wrestling team I could find.  It was a lot of work, stress, organization, and uncharted waters for me.  There were several setbacks as I tried to promote the event and it was quite frustrating at times, but I kept hoping the hard work would pay off.

The big night arrived and, of course, snow was in the forecast.  Our celebrity arrived a bit unprepared for what he was to do, and not really educated about the cause either--more frustration.  And the ice cream shop was quiet.  Since there weren't very many people I ordered the boys some hot dogs for dinner before moving on to ice cream.  They were well behaved and great sports that night.  Around 6pm some of our friends began to show up and buy ice cream.  Reid came and visited for a while before taking the boys home about 6:45.  At about 6:30 the sportscaster arrived with his TV camera to film a little spot that would be shown on the 10 o'clock news.  Sheewww....good thing it wasn't live!  At about 6:30pm is when things started to pick up and we had lots of great friends from the ward come out to support us.  Since it was snowing and cold people would come in to the shop and visit for quite a while before leaving.  It was nice to see so many friends come out to support us and buy some ice cream.  I was admittedly disappointed that no one from the wrestling/MMA community came out at all.  In fact, I joked that I could have been the celebrity scooper that night and it wouldn't have mattered.

Sighhh......oh well.  We tried hard and I learned a lot from the experience.  I am disappointed with the results and wish that things had gone differently.  It's hard to find any fundraising motivation after such a big flop, but who knows.  Maybe it'll all wear off in a month or so and I feel inspired again.  We'll see.  We raised $44 in ice cream sales and $87 in pin-up sales (additional donations).  A grand total of $131.

Joe Warren in the green on the left and Sam Farnsworth (channel 11 KKTV news)

Finn's best friend Tate came out for ice cream, too.