What started as a dream, a vision, a “what if” — is now more than just a reality. This year’s 4th Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party is in the books and I thought I’d take a look back at to recap everything and give everyone the whole story start to finish. I feel since we threw such a successful party that exceeded all expectations, it reiterates my firm belief that it’s important to have the passion and patience to dream and dream big.

Here’s the story behind the party:
The Ugly Christmas Sweater Party began in 2005, as a small holiday gathering hosted by a group of friends (me +2 roommates). While cleaning up in 2007, we decided to turn all of our hard work in to good for others, and raise money for a charity.

We chose Operation Breakthrough as our beneficiary because of the great work they do with kids in the Kansas City area. During our first visit to OB, we met with the children who benefit from their programs. That was all it took for us to become a supporter. The organization is truly amazing in all of its efforts and causes it achieves!

A steering committee of 15 volunteers made time to plan this party. We aren’t affiliated with any one organization – we’re just a group of friends who want to give back to our community.

Our goal is to make a positive impact by donating as much money and toys to Operation Breakthrough as possible. Our vision for the Ugly Christmas Sweater Party is to make it the biggest and best annual holiday fundraiser in Kansas City!

What’s amazing to look back on the entire effort in organizing this party, is all the wonderful things we accomplished:

Money. This year, our first year in organizing the party as a benefit, we raised $7,125.50 to give back to Operation Breakthrough! Yes, you read that right — $7,125.50. In my wildest dreams (and our Excel spreadsheet that had our estimated financial goals) we never even thought it was possible that we could raise this much in the first year. This pleasant surprise really validates a lot of the long nights and hard work myself and the entire steering committee put into planning this party.

Awareness. I’ve had more than a handful of people tell me they are now volunteering at Operation Breakthrough and had no idea of their existence until they heard about our party. How awesome is that!?! Furthermore, it’s great to see my friends engaging in the community and actively wanting to participate. Planning this benefit party really has made me realize there’s a lot of people out there that sincerely want to do good in this world, they just don’t haven’t had the right opportunity to do it.  We were also fortunate enough that two major local publications here in Kansas City published content about our party! Lawrence.com featured us on the COVER of their December issue.  Inkkc.com featured photos and a mini-story about our party as well!

Foundation. At the very first meeting with the steering committee I told everyone that the vision for “The Ugly Sweater Christmas Party” is to become the biggest and best yearly holiday fund raiser in Kansas City. We certainly have a long way to go in becoming the “largest” — but now that we have laid the groundwork, we’ve got great momentum going into next year’s 5th Annual. We reached out on our Website (www.kcsweaterparty.com), Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube to connect with our audience — and there was GREAT reception in online the community.  Much more than we projected.

Watch my YouTube video blog from this years 4th Annual party:

Here’s some pictures (taken by Zach Cobb, a professional photographer who donated his services for the party!):