Flapjack Fundraiser

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to everyone who helped make our Flapjack Fundraiser a success.  We are surrounded by awesome and supportive people and we feel so very fortunate!  This fundraiser was so much fun to plan and to host.

Volunteers

First a little background...Applebees Restaurant opens their restaurants early on Saturday mornings to host charity fundraisers.  We held ours at the Applebees by NC State, we stumbled upon this one because all of the others were booked through 2012, but I'm so glad we did because they were so nice and accommodating.  They make the process so easy, Applebees made tickets for us to sell and flyers for us to post.  All we had to do was name the price, sell the tickets, and show up to volunteer at the event.  Applebees only charges a small fee for each plate that is served that day.  So for anyone who bought a ticket but didn't actually come to eat, we got to keep all of the proceeds.  For everyone who bought a ticket and did come to eat, we still got to keep 80% of the proceeds.

That morning we got to Applebees at 7am, there really wasn't much for us to do since the manager and the cook were taking care of all the hard work.  We had AWESOME friends who volunteered to help us that morning with serving food, serving drinks, working in the kitchen, and greeting/seating.  Thank you to Jen and Adam, Catelyn, Kevin, Andy, and Mark's mom.  We absolutely could not have pulled this off without them.  I so appreciate everyone getting up early on a Saturday morning to come serve pancakes and hang out with us as we raised money for baby Harrill.  We were reminded again how loved we are and how amazing our support system is.

We sold 133 tickets, but knew that many of those wouldn't actually be able to come eat that morning.  Of those we had 71 actually come and eat breakfast with us!!!!!!   It was absolutely awesome to have so many of our friends and family there, spending their Saturday morning with us, and showing their support for our adoption.   I know spending an hour or so eating pancakes on a Saturday morning might not seem like a huge contribution...but to us it made all the difference.   We know that everyone could have stayed at home, slept in, and supported us from the comfort of their own home, but to see all of you there supporting us in person was better than I had even imagined.  

If we decide to adopt again, we will absolutely be hosting a fundraiser at Applebees.  This was such a great experience and got us even more pumped up about adoption.  As an awesome bonus, we now have pictures of all of your friends supporting us that we can add to the baby book, so that baby Harrill can see how many people were anxious for him/her to come home!