The actual 'Celebration Of A Memory'

Last Tuesday, Nov. 17, my PR Admin class executed a lovely kickoff dinner we had been working on all semester. The event lasted about 2 hours and included dinner, a survivor slideshow, a candle lighting ceremony, and Relay For Life Team Captain information. In a previous blog I discussed the theme "Celebrate A Memory" more in depth, but the idea came from The American Cancer Society being the official sponsor of birthday's. Our theme was black and white with a hint of Relay Purple and we decorated with wrapped birthday presents, candles, and black and white photographs of cancer survivors. We managed to feed about 100 people, give them a goodie bag of candy, and decorate the fellowship hall with no expense to Baldwin County Relay For Life. We did this through generous food donations, a $100 grant from our school's volunteer organization and we each donated $5 to help offset the cost.

After a semester of getting donations, making decorations and finalizing ideas, we began set-up in the church the night before. For 2.5 hours we moved tables, chairs, set table settings and decorated the walls. The day of the event we arrived 4 hours early to do the final touches and begin cooking the food. The menu consisted of hotdogs, hamburgers, baked beans, coleslaw, potato chips, a chocolate chip cookie and a cupcake. The walkway up to the church was lit with luminaries and to enter everyone had to walk under a balloon arch made with purple and white Relay balloons. Scattered around the room were 27 candles, 26 to celebrate the years of Relay For Life and 1 to grow on. After everyone finished eating, my class went and lit a candle on everyone's cupcake and we all sang the happy birthday song in memory of a cancer survivor.

With the exception of not having the promised donated cupcakes the day of the event, and having to go and buy them at the last minute, the event went very smoothly. I am very proud of my class and the hard work they put into that night. We managed to do a lot with a little.In terms of being the event coordinator I could not have asked for a more smoothly ran night. The Relay Committee was very happy with how we ran the evening and everything we had done in preparation for it. I think the night was very memorable and we all gained great event planning experience.