Written by DSL Mama Mary Beth Norton
In July 2019, I was playing in a golf scramble and happened to know one of the employees at the golf course where we were playing. After chatting for a few minutes and talking about Allen, she said to me, you should host a golf scramble in honor of your son for Down syndrome awareness. My husband, Scott and I chatted about whether this was something we thought we could make happen and little did we know that we had quite a bit of interest from family and friends.
A bit about All in for Allen…Allen was born in August 2015 and since our first Steps to Independence walk, 6 weeks after he was born, All in for Allen has been rolling right along. As a parent of a child with Down syndrome, I find it important to spread awareness and advocate for Allen and I’ve found doing that through fundraising has really given me the opportunity to share our story and educate others about Down syndrome. So, when planning for the 2019 walk and realizing I had a conflict with the date, I wanted to be able to do something else to fundraise for DSL since the walk was usually where I looked to raise money.
When thinking about how to plan our golf scramble, I wanted to make sure our price was affordable for anyone that might have been interested in playing. I had a list of people I wanted to ask to play, as well as potential sponsors that I thought would be interested in getting involved. Our list was a good combination of friends and family, as well as people who were apart of Allen’s journey, whether friends of our parents or people we had just met since Allen has been born. I was so surprised at how many people wanted to be involved! My initial goal was to have 10-12 foursomes and 18 hole sponsors. We ended up having 23 foursomes and 36 hole sponsors!! Besides that, we had 5 actual event sponsors and then 7 other sponsors who just sent money to help with our expenses. When the day was done and all was accounted for, we had raised over $20,000!!!
Our Inaugural All in for Allen golf scramble was a huge success and seriously so much more that I would have ever imagined! The weather was great, the golfers had fun and it was just so awesome seeing everyone interact with Allen and him just having the best time…and that is 100% what I wanted the day to be about. Allen’s interaction and involvement with others is the reason I choose to have these fundraisers and raise money. Spreading awareness and educating others about Down syndrome is important to me because I want people in our life and others that may follow our story, to be apart of our journey and see that Allen having Down syndrome doesn’t make him different. It gives us a reason to celebrate him everyday and know that his future is so bright!
Don’t be afraid to tell your story☺
I have 2 quotes that I like to share about fundraising:
Giving is not just about making a donation; it’s about making a difference. – K. Calvin
Most giving is 80% emotion and 20% rational. The best way to get to someone’s emotions is to tell a story.
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