Last Saturday, Sept. 15th, was the Energy for Life walk to benefit the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. As I'm sure I've already said before (I never know if I'm repeating myself or assuming you already know something), I was the chairperson for this year's walk. It's normally run by 2 people with a long list of volunteers over the course of a 6 month planning period. However, this year it was run by 1 person with a very short list of volunteers over the course of a 3 month planning period. Oh, and the 1 person running it has Mitochondrial Disease and has to work around periods of illness. So, needless to say, it wasn't easy. I had to plan it with half as many people and half as much time as needed.
However... I pulled it off! In fact, I think I pulled it off quite well, if I do say so myself. You might be thinking that I'm a little biased. However, I'm my own worst critic. I am a virgo, type A personality, "anal", etc. Therefore, I expect everything to be perfect. After the fundraiser party a few weeks ago I thought it went well but I still had a list of things that didn't go the way I wanted them to go. There's only one or two things that didn't go exactly as I had planned, but they were very little things and I am not really bothered by it. In fact, I didn't even think about those things until 24 hours after the walk.
The total amount raised for UMDF as of the end of the walk yesterday was $27,639!!! AND we still have money coming in! Now, I'm not positive about this, but I think we raised more this year than was raised last year. As I was planning the walk I kept telling everyone, including reminding myself, that, because of the late start and low number of planning helpers, I would be happy if we raised as much money as last year and had about the same number of walkers. So I am absolutely thrilled that we raised the bar from last year's walk. I will keep everyone posted with the final total as the donations come to a halt in the next month.
Now, for team Mito*GONE*Driacs.... Our goal last year was $5000 and we raised $5122. Now that's awesome. I raised the goal this year to $7500. At the end of the walk yesterday our team had raised $8,900!!!! Holy cow! The person from the national office who enters in the money received via snail mail credited our team with the money from the sponsors I acquired ($3k). However, I told her that it was sponsor money and needed to be credited to general walk donations. So that $8900 is 100% fundraising on the part of Chris and I and our team members. Way to go team!!!
A few people have already asked me if I'm going to do it again next year. My answer has been that I'm going to wait a month or two before I make that decision. I am also going to wait until I can talk to a person or two. Unfortunately my brain has had other things in mind. I have not been able to stop thinking about next year's walk and if I want to do it again.
The main reason why I wouldn't do it again is that I don't like the way the national office wants a lot of things done. They pretty much want everything to be cookie cutter to the rest of their walks. I, on the other hand, have some great ideas of how we can make more money and grow the walk each year instead of it staying around the same number of participants. However, they will not let me do some things my way. I just don't see it growing with the way they have it set up, at least not in this city.
I do have another reason for not wanting to do it again... running. The EFL walk is just that... a walk. Being a former runner, and one who absolutely loved it, I would like to get a 5K going. I can see that format growing larger each year.
For right now I am not making any decisions. Just thinking. A LOT. If I could stop all of the thinking, I would.
It is time for me to rest. Both for today and for the week.
There is one thing I can do while I'm in bed resting. Write blog posts. This is Mitochondrial Disease Awareness week. Last year I posted "What Mitochondrial Disease means to me". I will be doing something similar this year. There's also something that I've been wanting to post since I returned home from the hospital but just haven't had time. I will hopefully post that soon, too. So keep you eyes peeled.
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