[Ohio-talk] Results of student division fundraiser

[Kaiti Shelton]

Hi all,

I don't think David Andrews has sent out my announcement listing the
winners of prizes in our fundraiser yet, but I wanted to thank
everyone in Ohio for supporting the student division and the work
we're aiming to do for the affiliate.  Whether you bought tickets in
advance, decided to get some at convention, or just told a friend
every little bit counts.  We had one person win a prize this year who
only bought one ticket, so that goes to show you how everything
matters and it's just the luck of the draw.

The final tally, without taking away a minimal handling fee for the
PayPal orders, is $279.  Give or take a bit, $139.50 will be going
into the fund for next year's BELL Program.  I will have a voucher to
Emily so she can write the check by the end of the weekend.

This is certainly a big improvement over our attempt at this
fundraiser last year in terms of how it was organized and implemented,
but we still have room for growth and will be discussing changes we
can make to fundraisers in the future.  We already have identified
that we need more of a big ticket item or something small people can
buy to represent a cause or our state, and now that we're a little
better off financially we might be able to do something like that
around convention time next year.

We had a smattering of sales from across several affiliates including
but not limitted to Mississippi, Wisconsin, California, Illinois,
Virginia, and Louisiana in addition to Ohio, but we do have quite a
few winners from our affiliate.  Those who won should have already
received an email or call from Emily or Aleeha so we can get your
address.

Thanks to all who donated gift cards as well, including Eric and
Shelbi, the Capital and Lorraine County chapters, and my parents Pam
and John Shelton.  While OABS did invest its own money into a
significant portion of the prizes these extra contributions helped
pull the fundraiser together into a neat package of 10 different prize
offerings.  We were certainly the most persistent of all the student
divisions who sold drawing/raffle tickets at convention and this was a
good start to selling on a national scale for the first time.  Now
that we've got our feet wet we can move on to bigger and better things
like drawing for a piece of technology, selling small advocacy items
like wristbands, or bringing something that is somehow uniquely Ohio
to the convention for sale.

Let's go build the Federation!

-- 
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton 2016.
Music Therapy, Psychology, Philosophy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students
Secretary, NFB Performing Arts Division
Sigma Alpha Iota-Delta Sigma