<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div>I must admit with regard to this committee, I feel a little like I walked into the middle of a movie and am struggling to figure out what is going on.</div><div><var id="yui-ie-cursor"></var> </div><div>So I am not sure if we want to do some fund-raising brainstorming. But I am going to go ahead and tell of some of the things we have done. We are still searching for that really large, signature fund-raiser that will really help our affiliate and the national office.</div><div> </div><div>We have our annual big fund-raiser in the Salt Lake Chapter, Utah each August. It is called “Smashing the Myths of Blindness”. It is something I think many chapters could do around the country. It has been a really fun event and the public loves it. So here it
is:</div><div> </div><div>We rent a booth at the Salt Lake County fair ($200). It is open 12 hours per day for four days. We get a local auto wrecking yard to donate a car that they are going to scrap (body should still look good). The yard removes the windows, headlights, etc. Then we set it up in the booth. We set up banners announcing the NFB is Smashing the Myths of Blindness. We have a variety of sledge hammers of all sizes, and the public can come by and smash the car for $1 per swing. We get all ages and sizes. We also have a table set up with literature, a brailler, braille alphabet cards, blind services info, etc. Our chapter provides 2-5 people per 4 hour shift to work the booth.</div><div> </div><div>We have learned a lot of things to improve the event each year. Like we tell the people to smash the car anywhere except inside the car. The first year they smashed
the steering wheel off, and we had a hard time getting the car back on the trailer. We also added an accessible dartboard to the booth that people enjoyed trying out. And this past year, we decided to quickly paint half the car blue and half red. Here, there is a huge school rivalry between BYU and the University of Utah. So people who hated BYU would smash the blue side and vice versa. We kept a tally, but by the end of the four days, it was obvious which side was smashed the most.</div><div> </div><div>After about our fifth year doing it, we have it down. The public now look for us at the fair. We even got TV coverage this last year. After the fair is over, we tow the car back to the auto wrecking yard, where they can still scrap it for the metal. So they really are just loaning out the car. One place has even towed the car for us both ways for free and then donated the money he got when
he scrapped the car.</div><div> </div><div>We usually make about $1200. This is a very small fair. We have thought about trying to do it at the big state fair, but haven’t tried yet. The booth rental is much more expensive, and we aren’t sure they will give us enough room to do it right. I also came up with the idea this year of doing it at the annual football game between BYU and U of U in the parking lot, but we did not have enough time to get permission. </div><div> </div><div>We also printed t-shirts and hats that say “National Federation of the Blind – Smashing the Myths of Blindness” with a Whozit in the middle.</div><div> </div><div>We also do the usual fundraisers. We are trying a new one right now. The local minor league hockey team gives us tickets for one night and we sell them at face value, but we get to keep $10 per ticket. They will then allow us to put up NFB
banners and make announcements that it is NFB night, and we get proceeds from other promotions they do that night. It is January 19th, so I will let you all know how it went at the Washington Seminar.</div><div>I know this email was long. I hope you find it of some value. I would like to hear about others fundraisers, including the bike-a-thon Ramona mentioned in Idaho. I appreciated the Chile dinner idea.</div><div> </div><div>Thanks, <br>Mark Turley<br></div></div></body></html>