June 2008
Dear Polk County Non-Profit Organization:
The Town of Columbus started a new festival last year called Columbus Day. This year, the event will be held again on October the 11th. In our efforts to plan and prepare for the event, we have tried to figure out the best direction to take the festival. One thing we have heard over and over again is how the festival needs to embrace a local feel and how it should promote the local qualities of the area. Keeping this in mind, we came up with an idea for the event that would fulfill those wishes while benefiting many throughout the community of Polk County. This vision of what our newly formed Columbus Day could be depends greatly on the participation of the many non-profit organizations throughout Polk County, though. So, after I describe what has been discussed for Columbus Day in the following paragraphs, please ponder and consider the ability of your respective organization to participate in this event. The first aspect of the festival I am going to discuss is the proposed change from the use of carnival-esque food vendors. It is our vision that many of the local non-profit organizations will participate and set up booths at the festival. Your organization may sell homemade baked goods, quilts, raffle tickets, t-shirts, etc. I am not sure how common it is for non-profit organizations to host such sale booths, but it was our intention to allow your organization to draw upon your members’ skill sets to provide a means to raise money for your organization. We also propose to host a pumpkin carving contest for the event. The town would sell entry tickets for a price between 5 and 10 dollars prior to the day of the event. At the event, each participant would bring a carved pumpkin and the entry ticket. The entry ticket would contain a non-profit organization’s name that the participant chose. It is our hope that if we do enough marketing and advertising there will be a substantial amount of participants. As the jack-o-lanterns are brought in, we would line them up along the edge of Stearns School yard. As the sun goes down that day we would light the jack-olanterns and have a judging contest. The pertinent part of this idea to your non-profit organization is that 75% of the proceeds from the pumpkin carving contest would be donated to three of the participating non-profit organizations. The judges would choose the top three winning pumpkins and the non-profit organization listed on the entry ticket
associated with the winning pumpkins would be donated the proceeds. This would be a second chance to possibly earn your non-profit organization some money. This next idea for the event is to provide a games area. The idea is to recruit people and organizations to host games at the festival. So, an area on Stearns yard would be dedicated to games. Either non-profit organizations, local businesses, or other organizations would submit an application to host a specified game. The town would handle choosing which games to allow in order to ensure a well mixed choice of games to attendees. The town would also provide a ticket booth for the game area. Tickets would be sold at $1 a piece. Then each game available would cost a ticket to play. At the end of the day 75% of the proceeds would be divided up and disbursed to all of the non-profit organizations. Some possible games that have been tossed around are a hay bail tossing contest, a water melon seed spitting contest, tug-o-war, etc. The idea is to have simple yet fun games that people could enjoy while ultimately raising money for worthwhile non-profit organizations. This would allow for a third opportunity to raise some money for your organization. The town would also host a raffle during the festival. The person would pay for a raffle ticket and fill out a ticket to drop in a box. On the ticket the person would write down one of the present non-profit organizations. We would then draw out three names for the raffle and the corresponding non-profit organizations would win the proceeds. It is unclear at this point if we could get three quality raffle prizes for the raffle participants, but we would surely try. The real prize, I suppose, would be to have the money donated to the participant’s charity/non-profit of choice in his/her name. This would pose yet another fundraising opportunity. We will be having live music as entertainment at the event. Also, we are in the process of organizing a large farmers market at the festival. We have an idea to combine Columbus’ farmers market with those in the surrounding vicinity to produce a larger market with a wide variety of products. We are asking the US Department of Agriculture to set up informational booths about buying local produce and shopping locally in general and farmland preservation. This would help local markets and would promote positive environmental behavior. It is our intention to also ask a high school club to set up a booth/display to promote energy saving techniques for around the house. They might promote compact fluorescent light bulbs, using rain barrels to water plants with, or resealing around doors and windows. The idea is to educate people about simple life changes that can save money on power/water bills and help the environment too. There will most likely be some craft vendors and some more commercial activities for children. These last few ideas do not have a direct impact on the non-profit organizations, but I thought you may want to know what else is planned. So, at this point you may be asking yourself what it is that the town needs your non-profit organization to do. Well, there are a couple of things that we need your help with in order to make this vision of Columbus Day a reality. First of all, we need commitment. In order for this event proposal to be considered by the town and in order for such an idea to be successful, the town needs to know the level of commitment local non-profit organizations are willing and able to put forth. We know of a little over 160 non-profit
organizations in Polk County; we need to know how many of those organizations are willing to pledge time and effort into helping to make this event successful not only for Columbus, but for the whole community of Polk County. While the first request of the town is letting us know if your organization will participate in the event, the second request is if your organization is going to participate, can you include a promotion of the festival in your organization’s newsletters, mailings, flyers, or other literature. The town feels as though a substantial amount of the activities proposed for the festival are geared towards supporting our local non-profit organizations. Keeping that in mind, the more people that show up to the event, the better off everyone involved is. By promoting the event in your organizations literature, the town will benefit by experiencing a positive turnout to its event and your organization will benefit by having more people participate in the activities that will help support your and others non-profit organizations. Your response to the requests to express a level of commitment and indicate the ability of your organization to help promote the event will determine greatly whether or not the town decides to pursue this type of festival. As always we will gladly welcome any further ideas or help in this event planning process. We feel that hosting such an event in Columbus would be harmonious with the nature of the community, uphold local values, and would be a great service to the many organizations that serve the residents of this community so well. You may contact me at 828-894-8236 by phone, at danny@columbusnc.com by e-mail, or at PO BOX 146, Columbus, NC, 28722 by post. Thank you for your time and I look forward to discussing this issue with you further.
Sincerely, Daniel Hallstrom Planner