Day 4

The group is in need of a breather...and that is today.

But today we received our first donation!! Awesome! Everything helps.

Our news article is also ready to go to the school's paper.

Day 3

The Facebook group has been going wild! What a great thing! By the end of the day there were already about 250 members and still growing. And people are catching on that they can be a part of this in their own way.

We have made progress in the fund-giving department. We spoke with several people at The Bureau about setting up a meeting time with them. A good chunk of the group is planning to meet then on Monday afternoon so that we can hopefully find a deserving family. Yay!

We put up some flyers containing our group's slogan on campus as well. This is some exhausting stuff, but well worth it!

Also, great news! Lutheran Church Charities is able to help us collect any donations people are willing to give. This is the direct link to the fund where people can contribute. Thank you!!

Day 2

Enthusiasm was still high for the team on day 2 (we hope this lasts for 20 days though this is a time consuming challenge).

The night before the team had anticipated going to The Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare Foster Care and Adoption in Milwaukee County because we are really interested in helping this cause in a number of ways...and getting others involved. This fell through however, because the directors we needed to talk to were not in. So plans for that were pushed off to Day 3. (You never know what to expect really. Not everyone is on our time schedule, but we'll be patient.)

Other phone calls were made (some to the Bureau for more information, some to get a hold of more ways we can spread our message). We started work on an article about our group and its mission...for our school newspaper. More progress had been made regarding the bank account, but it was not fully set up. Some kinks still have to be worked out.

Our group met once again for another late conference. This time we were determined to piece together a slogan and mission statement. We got it! And we like it!! Our mission statement was sent in for approval, but we thought it best to already post it on our blog and on the Facebook group we started and edit it later. People were already joining the group like crazy, which is wonderful!

One of our group members whipped up a nice design with our slogan that we could possibly use on t-shirts or something to sell for support. Great idea!

Day 3 was already fast approaching by the time we finished our meeting. But we're willing to put in the work. This is a magnificent cause! We don't feel like this a competition even, just because we want all the other teams to do so well and make an impact.

Day 1 of the Charitable Challenge 2010

Yesterday was officially day 1 of this wonderful opportunity presented to us. Students and advisors from Concordia University, Marquette University, and Wisconsin Lutheran College gathered at the Bradley Center where Kapco Metal Stamping's president Jim Kacmarcik revealed what is called the Kapco Charitable Challenge.

Each school has teams of students (our school has 5) who will compete with the teams in their own schools and the other two schools involved. Kapco has generously given $1000 to each of these teams to use within 20 days by giving it away to people/groups they do not have connections with or by making an even greater contribution. Greater than us: 1000 dollars, 1000 ways is one of those teams. We want to make a difference and impact everyone we can! This is such a wonderful thing to be involved with!! It is so big!! So much greater than us!

Because we just found out about this yesterday, we hope everyone is patient with us in getting started--especially since we are doing this still while going to school, our jobs, etc.

We began discussing how to use the money while at the Bradley Center already. It was one GIANT brainstorming session! We've talked about so many ideas in giving, publicizing, raising support, etc. We have so many ideas! It's hard to narrow down, but that will happen.

A few personal friends were contacted about our task, but the public was not hit by this on day 1 yet. We met at 10:15p after the Bucks/Sixers game so that we could get started as soon as possible. Time is important in this. We sat for several hours discussing a mission statement and slogan, filtering through more ideas of what to do. The phone books were opened and the internet scavenged for inspiration. We set up an email account to work from (wlc.charitablechallenge@gmail.com) and started this blog as a sort of webpage to reach as many people as possible. We worked on getting a bank account started so that people can donate more funds if they so choose. (We'll let you know when that is ready.) We tried to approach this from all angles. There is so much to do and so many people to reach!

One thing we know: we want to involve all the people we can in this. Whether it be in giving time, supplies, money, talent...we know there are more than 1000 ways we can help!

The Charitable Challenge will rightfully consume our thoughts and ambitions for the next 20 days!