Mondays...

I started school today. That really has nothing to do with my work day, but it is a pretty important piece of information, seeing as I'm only going to be working here 2 days each week. I spent the first part of the work day updating my post from last week (which didn't actually get posted until this morning, seeing as I left a little early on Thursday).

I updated the contact list for the online auction with Government St Hardware's information. They donated 120 pounds of cement mix with which we will get the children of the Early Head Start program to make stepping stones that we will auction off.

I also spoke with the assistant director of the Early Head Start program at Glen Oaks about coming in Friday to make the stepping stones.

After that, I went to the Dollar Tree to see what kinds of cake pans they have that we can use for this project. They have a 3 pack of 9 inch cake pans or a 4 pack of 7 inch cake pans. I'm not sure which ones we will be using yet. They also had 155 ft of clear plastic wrap that we can use on top of the stepping stones so the children's hands won't be dirty.

When I got back to the office, I began working on reaching out to different businesses and letting them know about advertising opportunities with our Y Women Wednesday publication. I haven't heard back from anybody yet, but I'm sure they do not check their e-mails every hour like I do.

These days are flying by because of the late start!

No work again until Wednesday.

-R

Last week - in a blurb...

August 16-19

This week I sent out solicitation e-mails and letters to several places in regards to the online auction item donation.  I also sent out information regarding the sponsorship information.  On Monday, I’m going to follow up with the places I’ve sent information to and previously spoken with.  I organized the black tie Louisiana auction site and officially renamed our auction on the site.  I continued organizing the archives of ads we have from this year and made the table of contents.

For La Friperie, I focused this week only sorting through the items and organizing the donations.  We received 183 items this week which puts our item count over 1000.  This is exciting news because it gives us a good basic inventory of items when we do open the store.  We received a lot of scarves this week from one lady whose mother had recently passed away.  They are gorgeous.  She also donated a small book about different ways to tie scarves.  I am going to make copies of this book so when a woman purchases a scarf, she can have a free booklet teaching her different ways to wear the scarf.  We ran out of another batch of La Friperie tags. I printed and cut more so we are ready for the next influx of donations.  We also ran out of shoe tags, so I took the liberty of printing those, also.  I’ve updated the inventory excel file with all of the item codes, numbers, and descriptions and we officially have 1047 items plus a bag of jewelry that has been sorted through and (unofficially) repackaged.  We also got more dress bags to cover the items in the storage unit next time we deliver more items.  This will help in case of damage or dust or anything else that can ruin the clothes, shoes and accessories.  To keep everyone informed, we have 97 suits, 5 coats, 74 jackets, 249 shirts, 14 camisoles, 123 pants, 108 skirts, 95 dresses, 67 sweaters, 33 accessories, 23 belts, 104 shoes, and 54 purses and handbags.  I am starting to take an inventory of the number of long sleeve shirts as compared to the number of short sleeve shirts, so I can see number of styles we have. 

Cutest babies ever...

Hello again!

This morning, I updated the excel file that records the inventory for La Friperie.  We received 83 donations this week (excluding shoes and jewelry which will be recorded later/separately).  I updated the list of what types of inventory items we have, including sizes and types of clothing. This helps give us a better idea of the items we have and the items we need. 

I went to lunch early with my dad today, because he was at a seminar up here in Baton Rouge.  It was good to see him again!

This afternoon, I took a trip to one of our "Early Head Start" centers.  The babies there are so adorable and sweet! It takes a strong person to work at these places, though.  Babies are everywhere.  Some of the older ones were so shy, but some of them were trying to talk to us.  So cute!

I talked to the head of the 3 centers while I was there and she approved the ideas we had about having the children help us make stepping stones that we can sell in the auction to raise money for different programs of the YWCA.  I am going to the hardware store in a few minutes to see what types of supplies they have for this project before I begin asking for a donation.  He will be more likely to say yes if I have an exact figure to ask for. 

I updated my basecamp writeboard a few minutes ago. 

I hope everyone has a safe weekend!
-R

Soliciting Begins...

This morning started out like all of them - I was just finishing up work from yesterday that I didn't have time to accomplish.

I decided a few places on my solicitation list would be better to have the information mailed to them, so I made a list of those places for future reference.  

After that, I made my first trip out soliciting for donations today.  It wasn't as scary or intimidating as I thought it would be.  I went to Bumble Lane in Towncenter first.  After that I went to Francesca's in Perkins Rowe and a few other places in there.  After being told that they would get back in touch with me at a future date, I was on my way.  I then went to Pearson's Travel World on Jefferson Highway.  The man there was really nice.  He gave me a donation on the spot.  A beautiful maroon Vera Bradley purse worth over $60.  So I recorded his information and was on my way.

I showed up back at the office after lunch and lo and behold Chelsea was there! It was good to see her again! Hopefully She'll bake me some cookies soon! (haha)

We spent the afternoon tagging about 80 new items.  We didn't have a chance to tag the shoes today, so I will do that tomorrow, as well as inputing the new data into the spreadsheet.  We also bagged the jewelry that was collected, since it was starting to build up.  We decided not to tag the jewelry, since it will probably sell for one generic price, unless it's really nice.  Because we're not tagging the jewelry, we aren't keeping an inventory of it either. 

Well everyone else has left the office now!
-R

Tuesday rhymes with Moos-day!

I spent the entire morning writing, reading, editing, and re-reading the templates for the packets I'm creating to begin soliciting for items.  The printer officially hates me, because it broke twice while I was trying to print these letters. 

Peggy signed the sublease for La Friperie early this morning.  I didn't specifically do any work for La Friperie, except for collecting about 15 suits from one lady. 

I presented one of the ideas for a possible item to see in the online auction today.  They said it was a good idea, but it would take a lot of work and a lot more cooperation and coordination of very small children. 

I'm going to present the idea to another person on Thursday, and hopefully will gain the proper approval.  After that, all I would need to do for this project would be to solicit for donations of concrete mix, planter bottoms, small beads/crafty things/shells/pebbles, etc...

Chelsea is coming in tomorrow for a little while to visit.

It was a fairly slow day in the office, today.

Who knows what tomorrow holds?
-R

At the office late today...

Today was a slow/busy day at the same time.  One of the committee members for the online auction sent Peggy a message with some ideas for possible name for the auction.  We sat down and thought about each one.  We decided (unofficially) on "Getting an Early Head Start" - YWCA Online Auction.  It still needs to be approved by everyone else on the committee, but I like it.  I think it fits well into our auction because the YWCA has a program called "Early Head Start" for very young children under the age of 3.  We thought it would be a good idea to have the children of this program work together to make something we could auction off, as well. 

After a little more brainstorming, Peggy and I loaded her car with the 200 or so items for La Friperie.  We made new piles for the coats, shirts and pants since the original piles were overflowing.  We also covered a few of the piles for added protection until we secure the location and clothing racks. 

I spent the rest of the morning learning about the templates I'm creating for the online auction.

After lunch, I created a general template thanking donors for their contribution, another general template soliciting donations from potential philanthropists, a third template for an updated donation acknowledgment letter which includes more information about the donor.  I started on a sponsor benefit letter template, which will be included in the packet.  I am making the original of this template; we have never before used this type of sponsorship request.

I have a few more things to wrap up tonight after I get home.

More to come tomorrow,
-R

Happy Weekend!

Today I spent almost the entire day updating La Friperie's inventory list.  I added 191 items to the list, bringing the total number to 780.  I also created an excel document based on what sizes we have, how many of each size, and how many of each type of donation.  As of right now, we have 9 scarves and other accessories, 13 belts, 8 camisoles, 5 coats, 68 dresses, 76 pairs of shoes, 33 purses, 56 jackets, 90 pairs of pants, 205 shirts, 87 skirts, 75 suits, and 55 sweaters.

I did not record the jewelry that was donated because I haven't decided how we are going to record and tag the items.  Maybe we can use small plastic bags to keep the items together and place a sticker on the bag - just a thought though. 

We were supposed to bring the items to storage today, but because of the awful weather that was sweeping through all of Baton Rouge all day today.  

I'm still trying to come up with a name for the online auction.  We would preferably like something calling people to action, but it also has to relate to our cause.

We're officially signed up for our online auction account, so I've been exploring the site today so I can be familiarized with it.  I am probably going to start soliciting for donations next week.  Peggy and I still need to create a finalized copy for a template for solicitation.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to collect as much press information for the YWCA as possible.  I need to print out these articles and record them in the binder.  This will help make a marketing report at the end of the year. 

Remember, keep collecting donations for our cause!  Everyone, have a safe weekend!
-R