Volunteers for Nonprofit Event Planning

Want to volunteer? Want to demonstrate your expertise and talents? Or perhaps you are interested in learning something new to put on your resume? We need your help.

On this day we will have our first big event planning meeting. We will be dividing volunteers into teams based on their talent and/or interest to include event planning, sponsors/vendor recruitment, ticket sales, auction, gift bag items, venue, program, volunteer recruitment, marketing and PR, business planning and much more. Bring your talents and teach us how it is done - or come learn from experts. Hope to see you there.

Lupus Friends and Family is just now in the process of becoming a non profit license in the state of NY. We are an organization that started on Facebook (Lupus Friends and Family - you should join our group if you are a lupus patient or supporter) where we focus on love, support, and resources. Our Facebook group is 500+ people strong.

We then moved to in real life support groups for the locals in NYC (in collaboration with Lupus Foundation of America) meeting on a regular basis helping lupus patients with their disease, questions, and provide support and resources face-to-face.

We want to do more!!

Therefore, we decided to plan a Lupus Friends and Family Day event right there in New York City to empower and pamper our lupus patients/guests. We will have a full day's program with insights from a rheumatologist, patient stories, exercise program, healthy lifestyle, mental health discussions and much much more to empower the patients to stay motivated, continue to fight and not allow ignorance from others to get in the way of their health. We will have motivating and uplifting stories and focus on the common theme of the Facebook group: love, support and resources.

We will give free massages, physical therapy, yoga, facial treatments and much more at the event so the patients can feel the love and pampered. With take that a step further by giving all attendees a gift bag that is going to be loaded with free gifts. And there will be a comedian, a lupus poem artist and potentially a mini concert. It is going to be a big and full day for the lupus patients - so they can enjoy themselves a bit and gain strength and motivation to keep up the battle. We want to make this a special day and a slamming success so we can continue this every year.

We are in the planning stages and currently looking for a location to finalize the date. However, we are aiming at September 12, 2015.

Lastly, on the day we are giving away a scholarship for a lucky lupus patient who is going back to school. We are hoping this will help patients get motivated to find a job they can maintain.

We plan to offer a few vendor booths at the event as well. We do not yet know how many vendors we can house or how much we will have to charge to make it a reality.

What we are currently looking for (outside referrals and connections for a free location space in NYC) is gift bag items for a total of 75 guests. (That is our max amount of guests for the day). We are looking for tshirts, jewelry, make up, skincare, gift cards, health foods, sports equipment (water bottles, socks. etc), key chains, and much more. But really it could be anything from lupus t-shirts and candles to exercise videos and promotional items from corporations.

Furthermore, we are seeking auction items for our online auction. We expect to receive just as many various items for our auction as our gift bags: paintings, art items, signed by artist CDs, jewelry, skincare products, electronic toothbrush, gift certificates, yoga lessons, and more.

Sponsors are added to our sponsor list, get website mentioning, and can add gift cards/discount cards to our gift bags as to enhance sales from the event.

Once we are settled on the venue and date, we are going to address media as well. Hopefully there will be local and national write ups around our lupus day event - which our sponsors and vendors will benefit from, too.

We are working without a budget. Everything is donated in kind: our planners, event staff, the location, and hopefully the food at the event, too. Money is generated will be used towards our next event, more lupus scholarships, and more to benefit lupus patients, research, and awareness.

Please note that in order to get into the community room please ask for apt 2708 but take the first elevator up to 6th floor and follow the signs for the community room.

Thanks a lot for your support,
Charlotta
Ph: 203-400-7110
E: norgaardc@lupusfriendsandfamily.org
W: http://www.LupusFriendsAndFamily.org