When I started Christmas Crazy three years ago, I had very high expectations. I expected to raise $1000 for a local domestic violence shelter to use to provide Christmas gifts for children. If you've been around these parts for a while, you know that so-called "lofty" goal turned out to be absolutely adorable.
You guys blew it out of the water.
The next year I raised my expectations a bit and, once again, was completely blown away by the power of the nice people who live in my computer.
This year you guys did it again. I had a goal set in my head, but y'all just plain destroyed it. I don't know what I did to deserve your awesomeness, but thank you because you made one of the most rewarding days of my life happen.
Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
This year Christmas Crazy was a bit more than just a November fundraiser hosted on this site. There was an event sponsored by Visit Pittsburgh, Crazy Scary sponsored by ScareHouse, and a few really small little things that happened in between those two events.
Going into November, there was already $4510 in the Christmas Crazy pool.
$4510 before we even got started. KABOOM!
Then we started the magic here. It came down to the wire, but you guys came through with the $3500 I was looking for ... and then some. Once I added in donations I picked up at Cafe Solstice, the items that came in thanks to the generous folks at Planet Smoothie and X Fitness, Benjamin's haul, and a few other one-off toy donations, there was another $4620 ready for action.
The 2011 total for Christmas Crazy was . . . drum roll please (mostly because I need a second to do the mathy-type stuff) . . .
$9120.00
$9120.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NINE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I hope you didn't need any exclamation points because I just used them all.)
OK, so, the breakdown in how it was all distributed:
ScareHouse sent Alle-Kiski Area HOPE Center a check for $3000. It was the proceeds from Crazy Scary and let me just say thank you so much to everybody who made that happen because it will make a HUGE difference this Christmas for the people who benefit from the services provided by HOPE Center.
The rest turned into toys and gift cards for Womansplace. I'll tell you all about dropping off those toys tomorrow, but let me just say THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!! (Look! I found a few more exclamation points!)
Dropping off those toys to a group of shocked domestic violence shelter workers was pure magic.
PURE MAGIC.
Thank you so much!
That's about half of what we delivered on Friday.
I most definitely have the best blog readers that ever existed.