Craig’s not here. He’s somewhere else. The guy writes a couple of blogs entries and then says he needs to take a week off to work on some “stuff”. The guy is always working on something. He’s busy so you have to deal with me this week. After his blog post last week, this is going to be nowhere near as “eye catching”. This is Kevin; I do what I can for marketing the events that we hold or help with so that you kind folks know to come out and help us to help others. That flyer you saw? That was me. The programs at the events? Yup – me again. The little parade flyers? Guilty as charged. I put those together and my fellow Walla folks help edit them and we start spreading the word for each event. I have a slight problem with the marketing of our next event though and I need your help.

You see, we are working with the Johnsburg Lion’s Club to put together an event to raise money to help the Kinney and Radtke families with their mounting medical bills. This event is happening February 27th, at the Johnsburg Community Club (that’s a Saturday and we start at 5:00pm). I’m working on the flyers for that now, but time is short, so I was wondering if I may ask all of you for a small favor. Could you help me spread the word in the meantime? Could you tell your friends and family about the event, ask them if they wouldn’t mind stopping by for a little while to show their support. We’ll do our best to make it worth checking out. We’re asking for a $5.00 donation at the door. We’ll have some Meat Raffles ($1.00 a ticket), a 50/50 raffle ($1.00 a ticket), there will be a single elimination Calcutta Raffle (each ticket is a $5o.oo donation), we’ll have live music, food, drinks and other stuff going on. The event will go until 1:00am. It’s an event for folks 21 and over. By the way- you should start seeing the Calcutta tickets in the community soon, there will only be a 100 tickets sold prior to the event so if you want one you should act fast. We’ll have detail of how exactly that’s going to work very soon.

If you could let people know we would really appreciate it (especially me). We only have a short time to do this and you can help us make the event a great success to help these two local families through their hardships. All the proceeds will go to Kinney and Radtke families to help pay their mounting medical bills (I already said that didn’t I? That’s why I have the other Walla folks check my flyers before printing- I tend to repeat myself).

Background on Taylor Radtke

• Though tumor’s return likely, it’s good post-op news for Taylor Radtke – Northwest Herald (5/11/2009)
• Radtke family gets heartbreaking diagnosis – Northwest Herald (12/8/2009)
• In a story of too many miracles, hope for one more – Northwest Herald (12/10/2009)

Background on Annmarie Kinney

Annmarie Kinney was driving to class at MCC and a distracted driver crossed the yellow line and hit her. She has had 13 operations and is in danger of losing one of her legs.

In case you hadn’t noticed I spend a lot of time talking about Walla-Pa-Looza on Facebook. I have found that it is the best way for me to reach the 1,200 or more “fans” that we have. I crack jokes, mess around and even enjoy the jokes played on me. But, when the ladies of Facebook decided to post the color of the bra they were wearing to create awareness for Breast Cancer I decided to have a little fun with it.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I put on a bra and had people guess which color I was wearing. I e-mailed one of our volunteers the color so the game was played fairly. I promised a $100.00 donation to the National Breast Cancer Foundation and a gift card to the winner. We had over 20 people try to guess and finally had a winner. Game over?

Not so fast …

These ladies wanted proof. They smelled blood. What they didn’t realize was I was up for the challenge. So, I had my wife Joanne snap a photo of me in her blue paisley bra. See below for your proof.

I can sense the guys out there saying “is this guy a nut-job or what?” Well, I guess I was trying to get a point across. You can still have fun and raise money for charity. What we do at Walla-Pa-Looza is just that! We know that cancer is a serious problem and tons of people die from this disease every year but why not enjoy what you are doing? No one had ever said “raise money but be somber”. We do it a bit different.

If you have some fun and unique things you would like to do to raise money for charity visit our contact page to get more information.

Hey – First off, thanks for stopping by. This is my first attempt to communicate what is going on with the Walla-Pa-Looza organization and I thought it would be a good way to give you some insight on what we do.

Walla-Pa-Looza started as an event to raise money for cancer & cancer research and became an organization. We put together two events during 2009. Our first ever summer event occurred on August 1, 2009. We raised over $15,000! We had bands, food, sponsors and much more. We were so excited that the team of volunteers decided unanimously to do a second event. We called that event Jolly-Pa-Looza. We raised around $8,000 at that event. We had more bands, more food and more sponsors. This money is dispersed locally and nationally.

I never thought I would ever be part of something so awesome.   I have a true fondness for the folks that bust ass for something that started as a party in the backyard. I owe these people more than they will ever know.  I just have to remember not to burn them out … they are getting older!

For me, on a personal level, involvement in these efforts helped me reconnect  with old friends, has given me an opportunity to meet a few new friends, and given me a new sense of purpose.   I think its also given all of us a good way to make a difference.

Check back here often, as this is the spot that I will be updating you on current goings on, including additional event plans and announcements about where we have donated money.

If you would like to particpate, feel free to contact one of the folks on our contact page.