MILES Warehouse

Girl Scouts have a conference coming up for leaders. Most of the board members were all planning on going to the conference. So we decided to do a fund raiser to help off set the cost. We were planning on doing the same fundraiser later in the month for funds for upcoming events so they were going to use this as a run though to see what else we could do to make more money the next time.

The basic idea is that before the guys go out into the field they stop by a warehouse to pick up their gear and when they are done they stop by the warehouse to turn in the gear. It is basically laser tag gear. Lets them know when they get “shot”. It’s a little more complicated but that is the just of it.

To raise money different groups will go out there and sell food. Anything from hotdogs and hamburgers to baked goods. As the guys come through they stop by the tables and grab some food and leave a donation.

We were supposed to be out there Monday morning. We had asked the parents to donate items. And while a lot of them did we still didn’t have near enough for the amount of guys that were going to be there. On Saturday I went to the store with one of the other board member to get some more hot dogs, buns, chips, soda, ect. We ended up using a few hundred dollars of Girl Scouts funds.

Then Sunday I spend about 8 hours cooking baked goods. Cookies, muffins, brownies, and cupcakes. I a few hundred things made up.

Because the rotations change we didn’t know until about a week before the actual date we would be out there. Since it was such short notice all of the other board members already had plans or commiments. So it was basically set in my lap to handle. No biggie. It had already been arranged, we had gotten the food, volunteers had been rangled into coming out to help. I just needed to make sure the food got over to the warehouse and that the volunteers showed up.

Through a major lack of communication. The Girl Scouts were never informed that the rotation had changed. There were no guys coming though the warehouse that day. We had 500 hotdogs that we already cooked, a few hundred baked goods that were individually wrapped but had gotten condensation in them when we took them and set them up outside… in other words a whole lot of food that was going to go bad and no money.

I decided to stay out there for a bit because there were a few guys coming and going from the warehouse and it was almost lunch time and some of the guys from the warehouse said that they would come out for lunch. It was looking like we were going to take a huge loss. No fault of my own but still didn’t sit well with me. It was not a good day.

As I am sitting there trying to figure out what to do, already determined that we were going to end up losing money but not wanting all of the food to go to waste, Ryan pulled up with his car full. He had remember that we were going to be out there and rounded up a bunch of the guys in his squad and brought them over for lunch. It was so sweet of him to remember and come over to support the Girl Scouts and me. It really brightend my day. With all of them coming over and giving generous donations we ended up making enough to cover all of the hot dogs and buns that we had bought.

When it was clear that no one else was coming. We started dividing up the food and the volunteers that I had there all took some to where their husbands were working. Due to all of the fundraising rules and regulations on post we could ask for any money for them because fundraising at those sites hadn’t been approved. But the guys wanted to know why they were getting all of this free food. So when the laides told them a lot of the guys offered donations anyway.

Defiently not the way things were planned but with all of the donations we ended up covering every thing we spend plus we still have most of the soda and chips for next time… when there will actually be guys out there!

Even though Ryan might not keep surprises very well I love how he can still surprise me. I never asked or mentioned for him to come out there. I hadn’t even thought about it. Then he showed up with a car full of guys with him. I was the proud wife behind the table… “Yep, that is MY husband” ;-)