Relay 4 Us

Some schools have done the Jump Rope for Your Heart with the American Heart Association and raised as much as $87,000.  Other have done the Relay 4 Life with the American Cancer Society and raised $70,000 or more.  Those schools sent large checks to these organizations that raised $Millions and the kids who did all the work got T-shirts.

    Granted the kids learned some valuable lessons but imagine how valuable it would be to have them raising money to help them grow up drug free!

    We are looking for schools to stage a Relay 4 Us where your students do the same work and collect pledges and donations for every lap their team runs.  When all is said and done they will be able to raise $thousands that they get to use on their campus.  The only thing we ask is that you pay for the T-shirts.

What is the Relay 4 Us?
    The Relay is run by teams of students and supporters for 12 to 18 hours (many communities have a curfew that make a 24 hour relay more of a challenge).

Tell Us About the Teams?

• We can provide a different color T-shirt for up to 48 teams.  Each team should have 10 to 15 runners so that no one needs to run more than 30 minutes at a time.
• Teams can be from each classroom (this works especially well for elementary school events).
• Teams can represent each of the schools athletic squads, clubs or organizations.
• You can field a team of faculty members too.

What About Volunteers?
    The more teams and the more runners you will have the more volunteers you will need to keep things going smoothly.  Volunteers should be:

• Parents
• Faculty members
• Student who choose not to run

Volunteers will be needed for the following:

• Registration
• Counting laps for each team  (This will be a little easier because each team will have a different color shirt.)
• Crowd control
• Feeding the runners and volunteers

How Do We Feed All the Runners and Volunteers?
    If you have only 10 teams of just 10 runners there will be over 100 people to feed.  But the good news it that you should be able to do that for free or at best a minimal cost.

    Runners need protein and carbohydrates and kids prefer fun food.  Fortunately, these can work together well.

    To help keep your cost down ask stores and restaurants to donate the food and most will be willing to do so.  When they make a donation of a case of hot dogs, 100 Happy Meals or anything else they get credit for having donated at the retail price but they only paid the wholesale price for whatever they donate.  The cost to them is minimal and the benefit is very large indeed.  Everyone will know who donated to your cause and people will remember that the next time they shop.

Food Suggestions:

• Pizza:  DUH!  Most Pizza restaurants will donate 5 pizzas for an event like this.  They  also tend to give a great price on more pizzas if you need them.  You may need to go to several to get enough or on this one you may need to go to your treasurer.
• Pasta:  DUH again!  Runners need carbs and pasta is a great way to fill up at a low cost.
• Hot dogs and hamburgers:  Runners need protein and fat too and this is a quick and fun way to provide them.  The more runners you have the more parents you will have to ask to put their gas grill in the back of the SUV so they can do the cooking.
• Hero/subs/hoagies/grinders:  Ask you local Subway, Blimpie or other sandwich shop for their support.  For a couple of 6ft sandwiches you can put their logo on the shirts.
• Snack foods.  Kids need more calories than you might expect and when they are running them off in the relay they will need even more.

    Some caution on the food.  Be sure to check if anyone has any food allergies or special needs diets.
        Check if there are runners that for religious reasons can't eat certain foods.
        Check to see if any of your runners are vegetarians.
 

What Will It Cost?
    The main cost will be for T-shirts and that is all you will pay us for.  Additional costs you may incur will be paid from the money collected.  We ask $10.00/T-shirt which includes printing the back in one color with whatever you choose.

The back can have:

• Your school's name and event date
• Your motto or slogan
• Your sponsor's logos

• Insurance:  since this is a school event on school property your school's insurance probably already covers it
• Food:  feeding hundreds of runners and volunteers would be a lot if you took them to a restaurant but since this is a fundraising event you can minimize the cost with donated food
• Batons:  $0 We will provide as many batons as you need, one for each team

• Pay for new equipment for teams, clubs and campus organizations
• Pay for needed repairs on campus
• Pay for new books at the school library
• Pay for a school wide field trip
• Donate it to an off campus charity that is special to the students
• Donate it to that American Heart Association or American Cancer Society

Some of the awards you can give include:

• Pins for each participant ($1.00each)
• Medals for each participant ($3.00 each)
• Certificates or Plaques for the runner and team with the greatest distances and money collected
• Certificates of Plaques for runners and teams with the best spirit or costumes

© 1998 The Run P.O. Box 25152 Scottsdale, AZ. 85255