Ideas for fundraising

toonaspie

Just a poser
Joined
May 30, 2010
This past week, my sister and only sibling was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. As an additional kicker, she is only 36 years old. Kinda crazy now that I think about it cause just six months ago from today she had her second baby, then a few months later she had an appendectomy and now this. Her other child is only 20 months old so you can see how trying this is for her. Because it is a grade 3 tumor, I expect that treatment will be very aggressive and the whole family is antsy waiting for treatment to begin before things get worse.

With this is mind I'm looking for ideas for fundraising now just to help her out with current treatment but to also help in the long run with future testing and treatments. (Given her age and speed of the tumor growth, a recurrence later down the road seems very likely along with other complications.)

I know a GoFundMe would seem like the easiest route to go. But I feel it won't be as effective when I'm competing with tons of other families who are raising money for the same purposes. I'm considering other ideas that might be more unique, and have the ability to reach more people w/o coming off like total spam. I'm also looking for network ideas. I'm not very sociable in my family so I have no connections outside of family or work.

I appreciate any ideas and suggestions.
 
Not very helpful about fundraising ideas, but just to say that my mum was in almost the exact same situation - diagnosed with breast cancer at 31 with a five month old (me) and an 21 month old (my brother). She did go through extensive treatment then and with a recurrence about two years later (I was too little to remember this so details are scanty) but was then free of disease for 11 years. Ultimately, it did recur again, but she survived over 20 years from first diagnosis. And this was in 1978 - treatment options are way better now.

Sorry, possibly, the "let me tell you my story", isn't helpful, but your sisters situation just struck very close to home.

Best of luck to all of you.
 
I’m sorry to hear about your sister. I too am living with breast cancer. I don’t feel like I can call myself a survivor yet because I am due for my first mammogram since my diagnosis last year.

My hair salon recently did a beef & beer to raise $ for a nail technician who works there. She was diagnosed with an aggressive BC and needs chemo. It was a very successful fundraiser.
 
We were in a similar situation with my sister, 9 years ago. She had carcinoid cancer. It's a rare, endocrine cancer. She was told she had a year to live.

Her DH was a volunteer fireman and the hose company helped us setup a fundraiser for her. They had the connection to a local caterer who donated all of the food. We did a spaghetti dinner with meatballs.

We printed posters and created FB blasts. We had the dinner put into as many church bulletins as we could. We printed 1,000 tickets and sold out. We printed 500 more and sold out at the door.

The basket raffle had between 200-250 baskets donated.

All of the family members and close friends who volunteered to work bought "Team Jill" t-shirts to wear that night.

Aside from the planning work, we got together at the hose company hall to roll the final meatballs and to prepare the salads that were pre-bowled. Rolls were delivered the next day.

We got donations of beer kegs and soda from local distributors and we all donated alcohol for a wheelbarrow of cheer.

Baked goods were donated for dessert.

So, income sources were: dinner, basket raffle, wheelbarrow of cheer raffle, beer sales (glass and pitcher).

We raised over $60k that night for my sister. It helped her and her family tremendously.

My sister survived 5 years, and for that we feel blessed, especially because of her initial prognosis. Before she passed, there was a new treatment in Switzerland that she was going to try. When the cancer spread to her brain she was ineligible. We were planning to have a second dinner for her, but she passed before the date of it. We had almost as many baskets, but we supplied our own food and had a bake sale for dessert. That dinner raised about $20k for her children's college funds.

If you have any questions, you can PM me. I'm happy to give you pointers and encouragement.

I'm sending cyber hugs to you and your family. We all took turns watching her kids when my sister couldn't take care of them herself. I had Wednesdays. Each week, her 4yo DS would look at me and tell me he didn't like me. He thought that would get him off the hook that he wouldn't have to hang out with me. By the end of the day, he didn't want to go home, because I turned out to be fun.

Her neighbors rented a chest freezer and made meals for her and her family so that her husband would have an easier time at night.

A few of her DH's aunts paid for a housekeeper to come 2X per month for a year to help them, too.

People are amazingly generous when bad times fall.
 


See if a restaurant in your area will do a night where say 10% of their total will be donated between x and x time

A relay group in the town next to us did a bar crawl to raise for their relay team, but it could be done for your purpose too - you pay x a,punt for a bracelet and u get a drink and app at several different bars

Dh is a 10 year survivor so best wishes and prayers for a
Successful treatment
 
My cousin was in this boat two years ago. We had a t-shirt sale with her name and a cute saying on it (there are companies that kick some of the profits to a charity or person). We did the same with those rubber bracelets too.
 
I know how you feel OP. My cousin is like my sister. She was 33 when she was diagnosed with a 4 year old and a baby at home too. I was there with her every step of the way because I babysit her kids at their house four days a week and I continued to care for them even when she was home recovering or going through her treatment.

This isn’t a fundraising idea but one huge help to their family was a meal train. People would sign up to bring the family dinner a few times a week. It was awesome for her husband and kids, even when she didn’t feel like eating anything.
 


How active is your sister and her family within the local community?

That could tell you the results of a local fundraiser.
 
How active is your sister and her family within the local community?

That could tell you the results of a local fundraiser.


Being known in the community is a huge help. I've known a few families who were well known in the community and the support and rally around them was tremendous.

One family I know well had a son with lukemia at age 16. Immediately, his friends did the restaurant percentage goes to the family night. They also did walks and runs. The family had cancer insurance and was well employed so they did not need the donations, but they paid it all forward and started a foundation. Their son is well and completing his 5th year of college.

The mom is still well connected to organizations that fundraise for families with a member struck with cancer. Look for these groups in your sister's area and reach out to them. My friend called me a month or so ago and said that they had raised money and were looking for families to help.

There have been 3 recent well publicized cancer stories of very young children in our area. I was thinking yesterday what about the families whose cases are not as well publicized. It is sad that sometimes getting support and care depends on who you know and how strong your friend network is.

The big fundraisers here are the drawdowns, golf tournaments, pork butt sales, and the large ones like the firefighter one described above.

Good luck to you and your sister in your fight to beat cancer.
 
Not very helpful about fundraising ideas, but just to say that my mum was in almost the exact same situation - diagnosed with breast cancer at 31 with a five month old (me) and an 21 month old (my brother). She did go through extensive treatment then and with a recurrence about two years later (I was too little to remember this so details are scanty) but was then free of disease for 11 years. Ultimately, it did recur again, but she survived over 20 years from first diagnosis. And this was in 1978 - treatment options are way better now.

Sorry, possibly, the "let me tell you my story", isn't helpful, but your sisters situation just struck very close to home.

Best of luck to all of you.

I don't mind these stories at all. Despite the fact that it hasnt been mentally good for me reading up (and losing sleep over) everything good and bad about cancer treatments this past week. I guess growing up and seeing this stuff in TV/media/real life I always saw chemotherapy/losing hair as the ultimate death knell. This was long before I knew about stages and how the treatment processes actually work.

I also know that they changed the diagnosis criteria for breast cancer this year to include factors such as hormone and estrogen receptors but I have no information on any of that at this time. I don't wanna grill my parents on what's going on cause I think just talking about this stuff might upset them. The advancement in technology (and the fact that no lymph nodes are currently affected) are the two things that are keeping them optimistic through all of this. But I'm quite antsy about that grade 3 though and I still don't know when treatment is starting.

I'm sending cyber hugs to you and your family. We all took turns watching her kids when my sister couldn't take care of them herself. I had Wednesdays. Each week, her 4yo DS would look at me and tell me he didn't like me. He thought that would get him off the hook that he wouldn't have to hang out with me. By the end of the day, he didn't want to go home, because I turned out to be fun.

Her neighbors rented a chest freezer and made meals for her and her family so that her husband would have an easier time at night.

A few of her DH's aunts paid for a housekeeper to come 2X per month for a year to help them, too.

People are amazingly generous when bad times fall.

I don't have kids and I don't consider myself pretty good with them. Before all of this went down the agreement was that I would be more involved with my nieces until after they're potty-trained. Safe to say the situation has pretty much changed now.

I know how you feel OP. My cousin is like my sister. She was 33 when she was diagnosed with a 4 year old and a baby at home too. I was there with her every step of the way because I babysit her kids at their house four days a week and I continued to care for them even when she was home recovering or going through her treatment.

This isn’t a fundraising idea but one huge help to their family was a meal train. People would sign up to bring the family dinner a few times a week. It was awesome for her husband and kids, even when she didn’t feel like eating anything.

She's lucky that our parents live 5 minutes away and were practically second parents to my nieces about 6 days a week. The irony is that my mom and I used to jokingly complain how she never takes care of her own kids. My sister was a total workaholic so this is going to be a hard adjustment for her. Also her husband is the cook in the family so food shouldn't be a problem.

I'll probably refer to him for fundraising ideas. He's likely more creative on stuff like this than me.
 

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