Over the last couple of months I’ve been coordinating my first 5k fundraising event. It is in conjunction with my church, First Baptist Rogers, for purchasing water filtration systems for communities and families who need them. We are partnering with Baptist Global Response on their clean water initiative.
What an exciting and nerve-wracking experience.
Getting approval from the city, deciding needed supplies, ordering medals, donations, organizing volunteers, working with the pastors and communications team and my own feeling of inadequacy. Then comes worry about the weather.
I am so ready to get these folks running.
It is now the day before the race and I have my own list of corrections of error. But guess what, its happening!
We have 74 signed up on preregistration and several more asking about late signup. Volunteers are coming through and the weather will be beautiful. Thank you, Lord. What an answer to prayer.
Back in August I had so many doubts that I would be able to navigate the huge packet of required documents needed just to hold an event at the park.
But prayer and faith pushed me on, along with the fear of unmet expectations. My church leaders were putting their trust in me to coordinate this event with the help of the members of my LIFE Group (Sunday School class).
We made it through the city parks and recreation committee approval meeting without a hitch. I had my friend and fellow church member, Rusty, with me for support.
Then we come to the race day support staff planning and resource needs. The planning wasn’t as hard because that’s what I do all day at work in an IT setting. And I have ran in several races. Also several of my LIFE Group members have ran several races. So we have seen it done.
Yet, trying to put on a quality event on a cheap budget in order to raise the max amount of money is difficult. Especially without donors and in the first year of a run.
Queue up the Lord and His connections and we have two donors. One donor, a local business, even emailed me out of the blue with offer of support. Yes, please.
Now today packet pickup is underway. I’ll let you know how the race goes.
You can view our signup page and Facebook page at these links.
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