Coasting for Kids 2010?

How are you gathering all of that information?

Manually here:

http://www.firstgiving.com/process/participantsearch/default.asp?did=1785

But, you have to keep in mind that although all of the pages are for Give kids the world, not all the pages are for Coasting for Kids. The first time I did it, it took me about 10 minutes. It took me about a half an hour this time.

Thanks for the update Jason, I've been tracking when I have the time. With a little more than two weeks to go, the donations should go up quickly. Last year I think we only had two weeks notice.

Plus we puled in a lot of walk up donations at the parks due to the exposure the event produced. We continued to receive donations for weeks after the event as well.

I've expanded my donation reach to 2 salons and a DJ in hopes of more donations. I'm at $75 now but expect more soon from family and friends. It's looking however I wont have to worry about a seat considering. BUT it IS still about donating, not just riding _________.

DaveStroem said:
Looking forward to reading your article. I have no talent for writing. I would love to have a press release that had some fill in the blank spots to send to my local newspapers. I think that the neighborhood papers would run something like this.

I contacted GKTW about it but have not gotten a response.

You are making it too complicated, Dave. Just walk into your local newspaper(s) and/or TV stations, ask to talk to a reporter, give them what you are up to, tell them where they can find the info online for CFK, and they'll do all the writing stuff.

I think you are a good enough writer to submit a story to your paper, judging from how well you write here. If I can do it, almost anybody can. (Plus, they will correct any mistakes).

Seriously, you should see some of the submitted stories that I am elected to rewrite sometimes. I bet almost any CoasterBuzzer could do better.

You know, nothing is stopping any of us from using our local media to get the message out.

A friend of my family has a niece named Madison, age 7, who was diagnosed with Leukemia (Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia) in November '09. When she found out about the Coasting for Kids fund raiser, she shared Maddy's story with me and gave me permission to share it with you...

Maddy is in her maintenance phase of 12 week cycles of treatment - which will last till her last chemo treatment scheduled for 1/15/2012. She is doing well, her counts have been good, and her hair is growing back - though VERY short currently.

She takes lots of medications every day (one is a chemo and some to deal w/ side effects), takes steroids 5 days/month, once a week takes 8 pills of some kind of chemo, goes for chemo every 4 weeks, has to have a spinal tab chemo every 12 weeks, lots of blood work, etc. Her mood, her body form, her appetite have all been effected, yet she is still a happy little girl dealing w/ a nasty cancer.

Yesterday my sister-in-law said that if one of them complain about an ache or a pain, Maddy says, "I'll tell you about pain!" :) She likes wearing her head band that says "Cancer fears me!" Maddy wore that to Relay for Life till her head got too hot!

Now she can go back to school (though she attended last year, 1st grade, via Skype w/ her classroom and all work at home), be with family, be in public more, etc. But her parents own a place on a lake in Indiana, we just got back from there last night, and Maddy can't swim or be in lake at all due to all of the bacteria in the water. Maddy's been pretty good about just riding in the boats, watching the kids tube and ski and swim. They did let her ride the jet ski with Brian for short time on Sunday and then shower quickly after getting out. Maddy was in heaven as Brian put her front to "drive." Maddy now has a blow up pool and other land water toys to play with when up at the lake this summer.

Maddy will be at the Give Kids the World Resort on the Disney property via Make-A-Wish this month. They leave on 7/13. (today, in fact)

I don't think anything could illustrate the need for GKTW better than Maddy's story. Though, she's only one of many with a compelling story and for whom GKTW makes a world of difference. They are the reasons we are raising money. Keep up the good work! :)

I got my confirmation email today, and it was just like Jason's with two exceptions: 1) They have indeed surpassed the 60 participant maximum, and 2) It now says that all $50+ participants will get a t-shirt and meal options (as opposed to only Gemini riders getting meals). And it looks like that was a change because I noticed "and meal options" was in a different color. So that's cool.

Carrie, I agree -- that's why we're doing this! I'm a 5-year survivor of cancer, and while my treatment only lasted 8 months, it still feels like it robbed me of a year of my 20s. It had an impact on my home, social, and work life that still ripples today (cf: last summer's adventure in trying to get health insurance when my company closed). I can't imagine going through all that at Maddy's age, essentially robbing her of years of her childhood -- heck, imagining treatment measured in years rather than months! At least GKTW is one way to help give back to her some of that childhood experience.

Short of manually going through and tallying up dollar amounts is there any way to find out who the top 60 are at Cedar Point. I registered when there were around 10 and even $50 is a stretch for me being a College Student, but I really want to ride. I'm just trying to find out if it's even worth trying. Between gas and losing a day of work it's already such a big cost but if I can I want to make sure I'm in the top 60, any ideas?

At this point there are only about ten with donations over $100.00. Remember we are doing this to raise money for a great cause, riding all day is a perk so to speak. Just do the best you can.

And you can ride all day anyway... just not Gemini. Actually, I take that back, you can probably get pretty close anyway, even if you do have to get out of the train.

I think it's great that all the CF parks are participating this time around. Good luck to all of you who are registered! GKTW is an amazing organization who I've worked with before.

I think it's awesome that more and more people are finding out about this place. :)

-Tina

Yeah, I wish that there was a page that had all of the GKtW info all in one place too, just out of curiosity.

At first, I thought that I wasn't doing too well at raising money at all, but then I checked out some of the other participants. I'm doing as well as anyone else.

I never realized that getting people to donate just $5 is really difficult.

Tell me about it. I am writing up a PR to send out to the local media as we speak.

Based on my experience with other such fundraisers, people often wait until the last minute. Besides myself, I've only had one sponsor so far, but others have said they would donate, so I'm expecting most of them to commit during the final week. I also know many of my friends check email on their phones, so they might plan on donating once they're at a desktop computer, but then forget about it since it's no longer marked as a new message. I've done that before.

Yea I am in for WoF just so you know. I wonder if I should give $50 to get started or not. I kinda want to. My page is http://www.firstgiving.com/ly7 (LY7 is my work nickname at GM Fairfax Assembly Plant)

Just finished up the poster for the shop. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v127/columbusframer/CoastingforKidsPoster.jpg

Well, I'm up to $175 or so now. That's pretty good. Hopefully I get a few more in the next few weeks

Good lookin' poster, Dave. Where have I seen that photo before?

I just grabbed it off of Google.