Last June, I wrote a blog entitled “Fundraising in the Age of Social Media“, which was about a social media based fundraising campaign that my daughter’s soccer team participated in. It was an amazing experience, to say the least! We got to work with some awesome people at Pear, a marketing company in Chicago that arranges these fundraisers, as well as the super cool folks at RitzBits. AND, once everything was all said and done, we had earned $2,000 which allowed each and every girl on the team to get a gear bag, a set of warm-ups personalized with their number…plus we were able to get team t-shirts for all the girls AND for their parents, too!
Pretty sweet, right?!?
But wait…it gets better!
Not long after that blog was written, I received a call from Pear. They wanted to let me know that RitzBits was planning on spotlighting a few of the teams that had participated in the fundraising and that they (Pear) had nominated us! In the weeks that followed, my husband and I went through several rounds of lengthy interviews (via conference calls and Skype) regarding our team, our coaches, and what it was that made us unique. The peeps at Pear had nicknamed us “the scrappy underdogs” because of the fact, while our team is very successful, our girls are consistently some of the smallest out on the field…which means they have to be scrappy to survive (and by “survive” I mean “be competitive”).
One the Friday after our last interview I received a call from RitzBits – our team had been chosen as one of four nationally that would be showcased on the back of RitzBits boxes!!! A photographer was brought into practice the following Monday, and a hilariously fun, action packed photo-shoot ensued (honestly, I think initially it may have been a bit more exciting for the parents than the girls…after all, the grown-ups were the ones who grew up with athletes being featured on Wheaties boxes and what not).
We weren’t allowed to talk about it for months (which just about killed several of us, me included!!!), but then this past March arrived and BAM!, there we were…on the back of every peanut butter RitzBits box AND every pizza RitzBits box on all the shelves of ALL the grocery stores.
All in all this was an AMAZING, once-in-a-lifetime experience that got our team a lot of cool gear and some pretty sweet press, too! And to think…it never would have happened if I hadn’t responded to an ad on Facebook!!!