Successful Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser
Team in Training Table
On January 15, I posted up information on the Team in Training Spaghetti Dinner & Chinese Auction Fundraiser that my husband and I were planning to host at our house on March 14. The fundraiser was held to help us raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, as we train for America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride, as part of the Palm Beach Team in Training cycle team.
Putting Out the Food
Advertising the Spaghetti Dinner
I posted the details on the event to a number of locations including:
- My Bike Diva blog
- My Run Diva blog
- My Facebook profile page
- I created a Facebook event page for the dinner
- I tweeted the link to the Bike Diva listing on Twitter
- I emailed invitations to all my friends
I also used my desktop publishing program to print out a few invitations, for people I wanted to invite, that don’t spend too much time on the Internet.
Preparing the Food
I bought as much prepackaged food as I could to save time, as I was preparing the food all by myself. We went to a couple of local grocery stores to find the best deals. We found loaves of French bread on sale at one store for 99 cents each. We were going to buy large bottles of soda, iced tea and lemonade, thinking this would be less expensive than buying individual cans, but the same store had a terrific sale on cases of soda in the can. At another store they were having buy-one-get-one sales on boxes of pasta, bottles of salad dressing and jars of tomato sauce – fantastic!
I don’t eat red meat, so I made homemade turkey meatballs, using a total of 5 pounds of ground turkey, mixed with bread crumbs, herbs, Parmesan cheese, garlic, salt and pepper. I also made a huge pot of Italian sausage/peppers/onions using a total of 2 pounds sweet Italian sausage, 2 pounds hot Italian sausage, 5 large white onions, and 4 large green peppers. I also precooked the whole wheat penne the day before the event. I placed the turkey meatballs, Italian sausage mixture and penne pasta into large, disposable aluminum pans, which I wrapped with aluminum foil. About an hour before the party was scheduled to start, I placed the aluminum pans in a 350 degree oven to reheat.
I made the brown rice pasta, for my gluten sensitive friends, and the regular spaghetti about an hour before the party was scheduled to start. Tossing the cooked pasta with a generous amount of olive oil, then placing it in a crock pot set to low, kept the pasta warm until it was time to serve.
My husband borrowed two large crockpots from one of the girls at work, I used one to heat up the tomato sauce, and the other to heat up the Alfredo sauce I had made the night before.
I made a large tiramisu for dessert, and my friend Nina brought two berry coblers. Another friend said she was bringing brownies, but didn’t end up bringing them. Oh well, I should have made a second tiramisu, everyone sure liked the dessert. We also had the coffee pot going to serve along with dessert.
Ask for Food Donations
My husband went to a couple of local food stores to ask for donations. He didn’t get a very good response. Could be they are always getting asked to donate food, and I’m sure they only have so much budgeted towards charities. He got 2 $10 gift certificates at one of the stores. He went to a local Italian market and was treated rather rudely by one of the employees. The owner/manager wasn’t at the store at that time. My husband was going to go back when the owner/manager was there, but once we found so much food on sale at the chain grocery stores, he decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. We might be doing a BBQ – cookout fundraiser in the next month or two, so he’ll try working on getting food donations for that event.
Last minute details for food preparation:
- Cut up and place the French bread out on serving platters
- Put together the caprese salad (tomato, mozarella, basil, olive oil) and place on 2 large platters
- Cut up the Romaine lettuce and place in large bowl, next to croutons and salad dressings
- Put out all the ingredients for antipasto platter (black & green olives, hot peppers, provolone cheese, deli meats, bread sticks)
- Take the reheated meatballs, penne pasta, sausage out of the oven and place on serving buffet
Chinese Auction Prizes
Seating for a Crowd
My husband helped me get our large screened porch ready for the party. He got our son to help him clean, sweep and hose down the porch early in the morning, so the furniture and floor had time to dry out before guests started arriving. My husband took our coolers to work, to fill them with ice and pickup 4 card tables and 16 folding chairs. This gave us room to seat 25 people on the screen porch. Between our breakfast bar, living room, dinning room and coffee bar, we also had room for 20 people to sit inside. Plenty of seating for everyone.
A Happy Guest with his Chinese Auction Prize
Successful Fundraising Event
We ended up with 29 guests showing up to the dinner. It was a great success, as we raised $835 during the event. We charged $20 for adults, and $10 for children under 12 for the all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner. We also sold tickets to the Chinese Auction. I had a total of 23 prizes to raffle off at the Auction. Tickets were $1 each, $5 for 6 or $10 for 13.
Spaghetti Dinner Guests
Ask for Help
I wanted to be able to take pictures of each person that won the Chinese Auction prizes. I asked our guests if anyone wanted to play Vanna White, and be our product model. My friend Nina volunteered for the position. Nina ended up winning two prizes at the Chinese Auction.
Product Model Nina, with her Action Wipes Gift Basket
I also didn’t want there to be any controversy when it came to selecting the winning ticket for each prize. Our friend Bryan & Kim brought their daughters with them to the dinner, and we asked them to help us pick the winning tickets and hand out the prizes to the winners.
Our Lovely Junior Product Model
Host a Fundraiser at Home
I like to host most of our fundraising events at our house. I go way over the top with setting everything up, decorations, etc… The event took place on a Saturday night, but I started getting our house ready on Monday afternoon. I had to get up at 5 AM the next day, to participate in the Shamrock 10 mile run, so having the fundraiser at our house, gave me the luxury to finish cleaning up after the event the following day. I set a PR at the Shamrock run, and was totally exhausted after getting home. I finished cleaning up late Sunday afternoon/early evening. I don’t like hosting events at restaurants, you have to setup and take down everything immediately before/after the event. Way too stressful for me.
Take care,
Lynn Smythe AKA the Bike Diva
No comments yet.