This is our second year of
Relay Baton
Recruitment at parades....go beyound candy! Our community has a winter carnival parade in early February. We handed out "Relay Batons". The previous year excess t-shirts are rolled up into a baton shape, wrapped around is a "congratulations, you've been one of only 100 to receive a special Relay baton invitation to Relay For Life" written message. Follow up the parade with a press release and photo of the baton handoff in the paper - a casual reminder to those lucky recipients. We've event had tourists at the parade who started teams in their home community...it works!
Stella
Vernon, BC, Canada
candy
If you hand out mini candy canes, you could stick an address label on the back with your Relay date, website, etc. By using an address label you could run them through the printer, and with the sticky you would not have to tie anything.
The donation instead of a gift idea I have in the newsletter but haven't tried community wide. How about a letter to the editor in the local paper? OR Set up a mission table in the mall or other local gathering place and have a decorated poster making the suggestion and forms for them to fill out that specifically allow them to make a donation in the name of someone else. AND Have someone take a picture of the table, poster and someone making a donation and write a news article then submit the article and picture to the local paper.
Christmas Parade
Our event has participated in a local Christmas parade for several years. We usually decorate a flatbed as a "hope float" but this year will be walking the route. We also give away last year's t-shirts and hand out candy. It's amazing how many people come to the event later and tell us that they became interested because we gave them a shirt! We get our candy donated by the local Walgreens - who might be a national sponsor... so check it out! This year, we are planning to rubber band information cards to the shirts to give more information about the event. Good luck!!
Candi Sheppard, Chair Relay for Life - Courthouse EventChesterfield, VA
We are using for the 1st
We are using for the 1st time, at our christmas parade downtown this idea. we are decorating our HOPE sign ( which a very generous person made and donated to our relay it is built on a trailer. We are going to walk beside it and hand out last years tee shirts with a flyer on it about our relay. We have lots of shirts from previous year everyone likes getting something, and we get the relay work out even more
Birthday presents too!
I think Christmas is a great time to ask for the donation instead of a gift. I know that my son and his friends ask for donations to their favorite charity and make it an ask from the children at the party.
I wonder with all the effort in a Christmas letter if there aren't some Christmas letters that may do this very well... hmmmm let me look - or please hopefully others will post.
Nancy E. Peck
National Director, Corporate Relations, Relay For Life Business Unit
National Corporate Team Program Director
Christmas Letter
This is one that I saw posted on another forum here:
Dear Friends,
As we come to the end of another amazing year, it is that time when we are all thinking of holiday gifts and what to get for that person who has everything. For those people, here are a few gift ideas:
- Instead of buying someone a new scarf, a gift to Relay For Life will allow a woman to learn how to use a scarf to regain her sense of beauty through the American Cancer Society Look Good…Feel Better Program.
- Thinking about that tent for the camper in your life…instead, your donation could help send a child battling cancer to camp for a week at the American Cancer Society’s Camp Sunrise.
- Rather than buying that new fancy cell phone, your donation will allow the American Cancer Society to maintain its 1-800-ACS-2345 call center and www.cancer.org, 24-hour resources, which are available 365 days per year… even during the holidays!
- Instead of giving that gift certificate for a hotel stay, making a donation to Relay For Life allows the American Cancer Society to provide free lodging for cancer patients receiving treatment far from home through their Hope Lodge.
So before you head off to the malls to wait in line to buy gifts for those hard to shop for folks in your life…consider making a year-end gift in their name to the American Cancer Society Relay For Life. It’s a gift that will keep giving long after the wrapping paper and fruitcake are gone!
Happy Holidays!
Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy 2009!
Christmas Parade
This is a wonderful idea. Our city has several Relays in the season so we couldn't just pitch one Relay over another. Perhaps joining forces with all of the city Relays and having them walk together to show what are all about would be our solution to having the Christmas Parade work to our benefit with advertising exposure. I will be bringing that up at our meeting in a week. THANKS!!
Judy Barnhart
Event Chairman,
Blossom Valley - Relay for Life
Oak Grove School District Office Relay Team
Joined: 2007-05-22