Wings & Trees for Troops

For the first time since my time at Drake & Company, we hosted a fundraising event for one of our clients, the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation to benefit the Trees for Troops program. The work put in to make the event a success came full circle last night at Buffalo Wild Wings from 6:30-8:30 p.m. With little idea of what exactly to expect, I entered the restaurant blindly with boxes of information to set up at our designated table. However, looking back, there was very little that I should have been concerned about.

After initially hearing about Buffalo Wild Wings fundraiser nights, Steve Drake encouraged the CSF team to contact a local BWW. Contact was made and a Wednesday night fundraising event was chosen over a month ago. 10% of the proceeds from the evening's sales with a flyer they provided went back to the foundation. As soon as we began promoting the event internally at Drake & Company, our staff hopped to. BWW stressed that each diner had to have a printed flyer in hand for proceeds to be donated back to the foundation. Together our staff began pushing out copies of the flyer, links to the flyer on our Web site, tweeting it (which drew in a handful of new supporters), creating a Facebook event and publicizing it every way we knew how.

After discussion at a meeting the CSF team decided to take full advantage of our time and table space at BWW. Other than nicely displayed information, we organized a raffle and requested donations of goods, gift cards and gift baskets. The response from the Drake & Company staff was overwhelming. They made my job easy! With generous donations of spa, relaxation, holiday and house warming gift baskets we were able to offer our supporters a variety of gifts to try their hand at winning.

The staff at the restaurant was willing to work with us and help us make the most of our fundraising efforts. CSF was able to show a video about Trees for Troops on the big screens during our rush, and a staff member also made the rounds to encourage diners to check out the information table and the raffle prizes. BWW's mascot also made an appearance!

With help from a wonderful staff and their supportive family and friends the event was a success!