Up Till Dawn

[tunatartare]

Has anyone ever heard of this program or done it at their school? It's a program to benefit the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. We're bringing it to my school for the first time next month and I'm on eboard for that. I'm the morale chair so I wanted to ask the people who've had experience with that in the past what's helped and what hasn't and suggestions and whatnot. Thanx.

[PhoenixAzul]

we're doing it right now!! although, it seems like information on what we're actually *doing* didn't really get disseminated to your average Joe and Jane member.

[tunatartare]

Originally posted by PhoenixAzul
we're doing it right now!! although, it seems like information on what we're actually *doing* didn't really get disseminated to your average Joe and Jane member.

It's a new program here and I feel like people are going to be having the same problem. There's a lot of flyers and things for it everywhere, but I just don't think that people get how it works and whatnot.

[emleepc]

We have this program at my old school. You have to really have people committed to fundraising because it is a long process. We had letter-writing campaigns, rockathons to raise money, etc. A lot you can do is raising awareness of what the Hospital is all about. Many people don't know. The hospital is a fabulous one for kids' cancer treatment, a great cause to support.

[Side Story]: A good friend of mine from college was a patient at St. Jude's. She had several brain tumors and was operated on and treated there. It's a great place to be treated; wonderful treatment for children. Although Somer is no longer with us, I know that she was given the best care at St. Jude's and I will always support their organization. [/end story]

[JenMarie]

Our school does this around Greek Week since the funds from that week go to St. Jude's. They do a letter writting campaign. It's for points for the week though. But each house ends up with about 500-600 letters written because everyone tries to get the max number of points.

They also do a kid's carnival. I'm not sure if they actually bring kids from the hospital to it, but kids show up and play.

I don't know too much about it because it started after I graduated.

[goldendelta]

My school is doing it this year. The ladies in the chapter I advise are helping our local St. Jude's rep orgainze the whole event. They're really excited about it. They also participated in Sincerely Yours (which it like Tri Delta's version of Up Til Dawn) last spring and raised about $5000.

[tunatartare]

Thank you to everyone for your responses. We are having this program in about 3 weeks. I don't know how many teams have registered as of yet because I just got my eboard stuff for it last night. I know that a lot of people are aware of it, but right now my worry is that people aren't really clear on what it is and how it works. We've dne Relay for Life at Marist for the past two years also, and I think that some people may assume that it works in the same way as Relay. What has worked on your campuses about getting the word out about it and getting people excited for it.

[LightBulb]

Hey! We have Up 'Til Dawn at Christian Brothers University (of course! It is in Memphis along with Saint Jude ). Actually I think the old Greek Advisor at CBU was one of the founders of the whole program (at University of Memphis).

We had teams of 5-6 for letter-writing parties, and we had a 5K. Teams were also encouraged to do individual fundraising, ie canning or a date auction.

Good luck! As Morale Chair, maybe you could paint banners and put em up on campus, or put a nice note (mini-flyer) of thanks in the mailboxes of all who register.

[GreekGirl06]

We do it @ my school alot too such a good time

[sigtau305]

I got the information. I'm trying to have it as part of This year's Greek Fest.

[xogirl27]

We have Up Til Dawn at my school. We are, currently, the smallest school to do this program. Last year we raised $12,000 and this year, so far, we have raised $18,000. It is possible to get people involved, it just takes a bit of work. I suggest keeping in contact with all the people who are interested and involved, and start looking for sponsorships and donations EARLY. It is hard to do in the crunch.

If you have the chance, go to the convention in Memphis during the summer. It is an absolutely fabulous experience that you will not want to pass up... and you will come away with such a different perspective and awesome ideas. You also get to meet patients one on one.

We always bring in a patient from the area when we hold events. It really brings up people's emotions - to know there are actually kids who benefitting from the things that they do.

Good luck!

[sunnydebs]

I participated in Up Til Dawn this fall. It was the 2nd year we've done it on campus. I really enjoyed it because they had really good entertainment. They also got Olive Garden to provide salads and breadsticks, and those were a big hit! Good Luck!

[whitneypeirce]

i've been an active member of UTD going on 3 years now. i was on exec board last year as the patient relations chair and i am the public relations chair for this coming year. UTD at christian brothers university is awesome. we raised more money this year than we have in the past 3 combined!

ok enough bragging about our awesome program ...for the morale chair with the question:

our morale chair this year kept the morale captains organized. each captain had about 3 teams and they were to report to the chair on a regular basis. if there was an event (5k, finale event, fundraising party) the captains became the primary volunteers. being the patient relations chair and living in memphis, i used the morale chair to contact the captains about head counts for the hospital tours.

at cbu, the morale captains keep the show running by attending every event and set up/clean up. the morale chair keeps them informed and organized.

hope this helps!

whit

if anyone else needs help with other positions, just ask!

* Z T A *