It's over...

The Festival of Tree's is over! It was a great success, very time consuming and I am so glad it's over. Myself and 3 other ladies worked very hard and it showed. The Festival of Tree's is an annual event that our community does. Some how the majority of the work falls on the Booster Club. Last year we had a procrastinator leading us and nothing got done that really needed to. This year I really wanted to cancel it all together. Even the principal agreed with me. In the end it was decided that this year would make that decision. If we were successful it would carry on. If not we would do away with this event.  Last year we only had 4 tree's this year we had 15. Last year we had no raffle items this year we had 52. Our raffles were awesome too. We had Baby Alive, a brown and a pink bb gun, movie tickets, Zion's big screen tickets, Nerf guns, remote control car and helicopter and many, many more. We had raffles for both kids and adults. We went to every business in our community including several businesses in Cedar and St. George asking for a donation. I could not believe the donations for our raffles that we received. Last year there was nothing for the kids to do. This year we had FREE Christmas Tree decorations using sugar cones.

This year we provided a FREE magnet picture frame for the kids to make.

The town pays the High School Orchestra to play during this event. This year we asked Mr. Lacey if he wouldn't allow the elementary kids to sing and perform too. He took about 15 minutes and put on a great performance. All 4th graders present got to play there recorder's while everyone else sang.

I think this helped get our teachers, parents and kids to this grand event.

The 5th grade class whistled while the 4th graders played their recorders and everyone else sang during one of the songs. The kids loved it. Mr. Lacey loved it and the audience loved it. 

I wish I would have taken a ton more pictures. There were so many people present that I was very very busy. I could not believe the crowd we had. Especially compared to last year.  I must pat myself on the back because we really did a great job. Our secretary at the school told me that the biggest fund raiser our school has ever had was $1200. With our pre-ticket sales for the raffle and the money brought in that night from the tickets sold, tree's auctioned and crafts bought we brought in over $3,000. This has never been done!!!!!! The most this one event has ever brought in after expenses was around $1,000.We did have more of an expense this year but we are still under $500. A profit of $2500 is GREAT.  I don't how I feel now. It's been decided that with our success we will be participating once again next year. I worked so hard on this that it does sadden me to know that I won't be here next year to see it through or even just to help. We made so many changes this year and was fought against all the way by so many people. It's great to know that everything worked out. That we did it. We still made mistakes and would do several things differently but I can't complain too much knowing how much we made. It was a long day/night but it was so much fun too. I'm so glad that I can leave our little community in a few months knowing that I helped change something for the better.