The John Wells Jr Memorial March to $100K
Every year, the Sons of Sam Horn (a Red Sox discussion board I belong to) has a fundraising drive or two to benefit local charities, typically The Jimmy Fund or Mass ALS. The site does pretty well with its humanitarian endeavors, having generated anywhere from $30,000 – $70,000 each year for its causes, most of it directly from members.
This year SoSH has decided to devote the entire 12 months to raising money for the Jimmy Fund in honor of one of our members who recently passed away, John Wells. The target is an ambitious one; we hope to raise $100,000 over the course of 2011. There are a variety of events being held throughout the year to help attain this goal… road races, bar nights, polar plunges, and our annual midsummer online auction, among other things. Full details regarding the scope of the project can be found here (and you can follow the drive’s exploits on Facebook here).
I’ve donated artwork to the site for its charitable online auctions in the past, and members have been kind enough to pay generous amounts for these pieces in the name of fighting cancer or ALS. This year, given my personal attachment to the mission and the challenging goal that has been set, my intention is to create at least five pieces for donation with the hope that they can generate $5,000 toward the cause. This may entail producing a limited number of prints of each piece and selling those in addition to the originals, but a cost/return assessment will need to be done, as well as squaring away any concerns about copyright issues. It may well be that prints will devalue any potential bids on original artwork; SoSH’s member base is relatively small, and maximizing supply and demand will be key to reaching my goal of $5K.
I’ve already started working on the pieces for the auction, which will be held in July. I’ll post them as part of my blog updates as they’re completed, I’ve already got one down, finished on New Year’s Day, appropriately enough.
Keep an eye out here throughout the first half of 2011 for news and updates on SoSH’s fundraising efforts. Thank you.
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