Moorhouses On Mission

Spaghetti Lunch Fundraiser for Adoption!

...was a HUGE success!

We raised just over $600 dollars for our adoption today!

Here's how we did it:

1.)  First, we created flyers with information about the spaghetti lunch.  We decided to provide baked spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, dressing and do delivery only for $8 a plate.  The flyers had all this info plus included a few photos of us and a bit of information about our international adoption.  

2.)  Last week we began taking pre-orders.  We visited about 50 businesses and handed out over 60 flyers.  Most people did not make orders right away but rather called us later in the day to place their order.  We only got orders from 15 businesses.  At first, I was disappointed because it seemed that not that many people were taking us up on our offer of providing lunch, but God knew what He was doing, and everything really turned out perfectly today.  

3.)  Prior to all this, I visited all of our local grocery stores inquiring about getting donations from them. I was pleased that 2 Food Lions and 1 Lowes Foods very generously donated either food or gift cards to us!  We had some friends and family who also donated salad, bread, and cutlery!  Over this past weekend, I went shopping for everything we did not get donated, which ended up being the hamburger meat and some dressings.  We only spent about $40 out of pocket!

4.)  On Monday, we called several businesses that had seemed interested in participating but whom we had not gotten an order from yet.  It turned out that many had forgotten about our event over the weekend, so placing these reminder calls was a good thing.  We got several more orders just yesterday and Monday.  We ended up with 15 businesses participating with 66 orders.

5.)  Next, my sisters, niece, and mom came to my house this morning to help us cook.  (I wish I would've taken a photo to insert here) They were awesome, and we absolutely could not have done this fundraiser without their help.  When we first got this idea, I had a community kitchen secured.  It is located right in the center of town, but then when we learned how much the rent was going to cost us, we cancelled it and decided to cook right here in my own small kitchen.  It was a tight space, but we got an early start, and everything went very smoothly.  66 was a perfect amount of lunches for us to be able to cook and deliver.  God knew what we could handle.

6.)  Once it was time for the deliveries to begin, Jeremy and myself took groups of lunches and drove them out to the businesses, collected payment, and returned home to pick up the next delivery.  We live about 10 minutes from town, so this was the hardest part, but I'm happy that we were only significantly late on two deliveries.  When we took pre-orders, we had the businesses choose a delivery time (on the half hour) between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.  I'm glad these were staggered as it made it much easier for us to deliver on time!

7.)  Clean up!  My mom and sister helped tremendously with this.  Then, we all sat down and enjoyed our own spaghetti lunch!  

The best part of this fundraiser was all the new people we met in the community.  I learned that our town has a Thrift Store that donates all their proceeds to the Abba Fund, which provides interest-free loans to adoptive families.  I met a business owner who had adopted his daughter from Russia several years ago.  Then, I saw them dining in the restaurant I work at and got to meet his whole family!  We met one of our local fire fighters who was adopted when he was young, and he now has a relationship with his biological family and his adoptive family.  One lawyer was going to be in court today, but he felt led to simply mail us a contribution even though he wouldn't be able to order a plate.  

The neatest thing is that one day, we will be able to tell our son or daughter all about the spaghetti, and our helpers, and about all the businesses that played a role in bringing him or her home!  

If you're interested in doing a spaghetti lunch fundraiser yourself and have any questions for us, please leave a comment.  We would definitely like to do this again...maybe this Winter even!  

Praise God from whom all blessing flow!