Last December, Leah and I agreed to take over and run the Annual Fund Drive for the Chorus of Westerly. No one else had stepped up to volunteer, and we agreed it was too important to let it continue with no one at the helm. The organization had gone for eight months without anyone in charge of the single largest source of income it has.
So in the last two months, we have learned how to use one of the most powerful Fundraising software packages in the industry. We have printed over 4,000 envelopes. We have written letters, instructions, and tried to motivate a group of 250 people to hand write 4,000 letters asking for donations.
Leah has jumped back in to her role as a leader with full force. She is amazing to watch. There is no way that any of this could have happened without her professional expertise. She is the manager, organizer, and leader.
I am the computer geek. I am also the cheerleader. I fire up the crowd. I try to make everyone think that writing letters asking for money is fun. This week, I recruited a teenager, the son of friends of ours, to play a song.
It was John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
I changed the lyrics.
It went over very well.
The entire chorus sang, “ooh-ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh” and waved pretend lighters in the air.
Afterward, as we changed out of our hippie clothes, Ben said to me, “That was great. I was just glad that people knew the song.”
“Ben,” I said, “every person over 30 knows the words to that song. It’s John Lennon.”
“Really?”
I suddenly felt very, very, very old.
