Adventures in Fundraising - Gourmet Meals for a Year

As some of my readers may know, I am the chairperson for the Mission Campaign for our youth choir, Pueri Cantores St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and my husband is the director.  We are raising money to travel to Rome on December 26 and sing for the New Year's Day Mass of Peace with Pope Francis!  It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for 46 singers, ages 8 through 18, and it's even more special because we will be sharing the experience with 5,000 young singers from every continent!  I get the shivers every time I think of the trip for my 2 kids.

We had some pretty intense fundraising activity last Spring and are gearing up for our last push before we make our final trip payments in mid-October.  We did a number of "basket raffles," and made about $3,000.  As one of our "basket raffles," we raffled off 12 months of homemade gourmet meals, one per month.  Our winner was a nice couple in our parish choir.  I've made several of these meals and although it is a bit of work, it's fun for me.  I wouldn't call my self a gourmet cook by any stretch (don't tell them that!), but I can follow a recipe and enjoy trying new ones.

This month's menu includes:

Cucumber Ginger Sesame Salad
Honey Mustard Chicken
Rice
Garlic Parmesan Mashed Cauliflower
Meyer Lemon Pound Cake
Peach Raspberry Sangria

I've linked two recipes to the items above (none are original to me!).  The other items I found inspiration, but in the end changed them in favor of my own recipe.  One of those was the Cucumber Ginger Sesame Salad:

It's very easy - cucumber, carrots, edamame and toasted sesame seeds.  I used a store bought Asian Sesame dressing.  The best part of this recipe was cutting the cucumber.  Using a potato peeler, I worked around the top of the cucumber to make twists that are so pretty! Before mixing them with the other ingredients, I laid them out to dry a little.  I hate when cucumber salads are watery because of the cucumbers.

  

These meals are delivered on the third Sunday of every month.  I try to make extra of everything so I can feed my own family as well.  This month I started about 24 hours before delivery with the pound cake and sangria.  I will admit I'm cheating a bit, using a store bought mix. This one is from Krusteaz and if the smell while baking is any indication, this is going to be seriously yummy!

 






I have always wanted to make sangria, especially a white peach version.  For the fruit, I used 2 yellow peaches and 1 white nectarine with raspberries.  Then I added 1/2 c. of peach schnapps, 1/2 c. of brandy, 2 12 oz cans of 7-Up and 2 bottles of Moscato wine. That will make about 10 good servings of sangria. A good sangria requires at least 8 hours to mix and I'm gave mine 24. And oh, it was worth the wait!

I was also pleased with the Honey Mustard Chicken (see link to recipe above).  I served it over white rice.

Hey, if you appreciate this fundraising suggestion, the recipes or just my blog, we would love your support.  Our YouCaring fund is HERE and even the smallest donations are appreciated!

Cindy

So What's Up With You?

I haven't been around these parts in a little while, but Straddling the Gap still lives.  The last 9 months have been occupied with fundraising, planning, stressing and looking for donors.  Why?  My husband's children's choir, Pueri Cantores St. Bernard of Clairvaux, is going to Rome at this time next year to participate in the International Congress of Pueri Cantores.  Huh?  We get to sing for Pope Francis on New Year's Day 2016!!

It's an amazing opportunity to join nearly 5,000 other children from all over the world singing together in the Catholic Church's official language - Latin.  We are the only group from Arizona that is going and we're very proud of our kids - ages 9 through 18.  So was it enough to have this enormous endeavor on his plate?  Oh no.  I volunteered to be the chairperson of a $150,000 development campaign to fund the trip.  Yikes!

It has been a whirlwind to say the least.  We've had some adventures in fundraising and learned about development campaigns.  We're still learning.  Daily.  Sometimes I think we are learning by osmosis - constantly absorbing.  It's been thrilling but frustrating.  Scary and exhilarating all at the same time.  And we're only halfway through.

This has left me with little time to write Straddling the Gap and I do miss it.  So, for 2015 I'm going to write about what I'm doing.  Unfortunately it's not much crafting or sewing, but our fundraisers are interesting.  Next time I'll tell you about our newest fundraising endeavor - we have a tiger by the tail and a trip for two on the line.

In the meantime, if you want to hear more about our choir, please visit our website at www.pcsbc.org or like Pueri Cantores St. Bernard of Clairvaux on Facebook.

Cindy

Fundraising Follies

This weekend, we are going on a trip to California for my husband’s business.  He is a church music director and his children’s choir is singing at a festival and Disneyland!  Being the music director’s wife is like being a pastor’s wife – you’re expected to lead in supporting the ministry.  Sooo, I became the unofficial chair of the fundraising committee – a committee of two with my dear Katie to help.  We both work full time outside of the home so we were a bit handicapped out of the gate.  In fact, we didn’t start fundraising until after the first of the year.

Our big fundraiser was a multi-basket raffle.  We assembled baskets with themes and sold raffle tickets that the purchaser used to pick the basket(s) he or she wanted.  I enlisted the choir moms to either create entire baskets or donate items to include in a basket.  Some of the “complete” baskets were 25 boxes of Girl Scout cookies, a tool set, a spa basket, and a cooking basket complete with fancy kitchen supplies.  The other baskets were assembled by Katie and I and included individual items we put together.  We made a “Mom Relief “ basket that included perfume, jewelry, picture frames and thank you notes and a homemade teddy bear.  We also assembled a “Scrapbook” basket where we broke into our stashes and came up with albums, stickers, paper, tools, embellishments and a certificate for a day crop at a local scrapbook cottage. 

I learned several things about basket raffles: 
1.  If you ask people to put together a whole basket, let them choose the theme. 
2.  Ask people to donate items, group them together and create your own theme.  We had a “Religious Items” basket (complete with reserved parking and a front pew for Christmas and Easter). 
3.  Don’t be limited by the obvious themes – restaurant, manicure, movie gift certificates (although those are great), but use your imagination!  Our baskets included, among other things, a Scentsy warmer, homemade booties and a bag of Dove chocolate. 
4.  “Regifting” is encouraged!  It's best use of a gift you don’t want/need. 
5.  Don’t be afraid to ask local businesses!  We had donations from salons, a scrapbook cottage, a well-known Nascar driver, a photographer and a casino. 
6.  Think outside the box – what about a gift certificate for dry cleaning, grocery store, house cleaning services, the local hardware store, even babysitting from some teens at the church? 
7.  You don’t have to have a “big ticket” item in the baskets.  We did have a couple of baskets that included tickets to sporting events and a trip to Cancun, but those weren’t even the most popular baskets.  The most popular was the “Foodie” basket with bottles of wine, wine glasses, snacks and local restaurant gift certificates. 

The best part was that over a three week period of selling tickets after our masses, we raised over $6,000!  That was before the “tried and true” bake sale we had on Super Bowl Sunday.  Tomorrow I will give you some of the best tips I learned for bake sales.

cindy