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!):

So on my drive home — I was thinking, I really should put together a semi-formal explanation vblog as a “pass-along” piece for the benefit party I’m planning.

And waa-laa (see below). I whipped up together this quick vblog. A short and sweet history of the party. I’m planning on making more videos …hopefully funny and crazy ones.

Have you been following my posts about the benefit party I’m planning? It’s dedicated to helping a local organization her in Kansas City called Operation Breakthrough. They help over 600 children everyday of families that live below the federal poverty guidelines.

The BIG news is today we launched our “save the date” website! (www.kcsweaterparty.com) Lots of hard work and hours were poured into getting this up — big shout outs to the great company I work for, Digital Evolution Group and the entire steering committee for everything they are doing to make this idea/dream a reality.

We struggled for a while trying to figure out a domain name. UglyChristmasSweaterParty.com is too long and some of the short ones we tried either sound weird or have been taken already. We also had to tweak the logo a bit to get it just right. However, I’m stoked in how B.A. the creative design and logo turned out! It’s surreal to think this was just a idea/dream only a few months ago — now it’s really coming together! The website will be launching in late October, but check out our save the date page now!

Point your web browser to:

www.kcsweaterparty.com

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So check out the logo for the benefit party I’m planning (below). How awesome is this!?!

I posted earlier this month about the benefit party I’m planning — which is help a local organization her in Kansas City, Operation Breakthrough.

I’m really proud of the fact the friends I’m working with are doing everything they can to make this party the best it can be. We’ve already secured the venue which is Tower Tavern — and we have a local “hip-hop” band that will be performing too!

It’s just amazing how much everyone is willing to help out. I can’t tell you how great of a feeling to watch this all come together.
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