Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries.

Today I'm talking about renewal. It's Easter today when I'm recording this. It's Easter this week. Spring is a time of renewal, right, but in general, I'm thinking a lot about renewal. This week. There's been some highs and there's always some lows, right.

I've been working in the yard a lot because now I feel like I'm almost to the point where I'm just maintaining. All these last four years that we've been in the house, I've been trying to grow and develop the garden and now I feel like I'm at a point where I'm maintaining it and that's a much better place to be. There's still some things that I want to do to it. There's still some things that I need to clean and prep and clean up and fix and everything, but in general, I feel like I'm more at a maintenance level than anything. Spring is just such a great season. I used to enjoy the summer more for some reason, but now that I'm older I don't enjoy the heat as much. So spring is great. Everything is green. So spring is great. Everything is green green, you know that light green color. All the plants are happy, there's extra new growth to them and it's just a wonderful time to see all the trees and the bushes and the flowers and birds and everybody's happy. So that's great. And the weeds? Let's not forget the weeds.

The fundraising event that I'm working on is coming along not as well as I had hoped. Sponsorship is always a challenge getting sponsorship, and I think I'm doing well, considering that it's a new organization that I'm working with and I have no relationships with any of the previous sponsors or any of the prospective sponsors. So I'm trying to remain hopeful about that. We have about five and a half weeks to go. I have beat last year's record, but last year wasn't that great, but at least I've beat that number right, so that's good.

I did secure a local TV news anchor to be our MC, and you might not think that that really gives you that much, but it does help elevate the event. It helps give you credibility and this event and this organization hasn't had any of that interaction before that I know of. I don't think they have, certainly not for this event. It's only the fourth annual and we did a Instagram post and asked this anchor it's Megan Tellis of KTLA, so it's very local. It's a very local Los Angeles, southern California person, but we did ask her to collaborate with us on the Instagram post and the result was that our Instagram post blew up, which was good. We usually get anywhere from five to 25 likes on a post and the last time I looked we were over 900. So that was good. Does it bring us any dollars right away? No, but it is free publicity and it gets the word out and it gets our name out. So I'm happy about that. I was happy that I was able to bring that to fruition and you can never say no to free publicity, right? I think that KTLA's already done a great job of partnering with us on this event, so I'm very happy about that.

Fundraising is, at best, a difficult, challenging profession and I've enjoyed it a lot. I know a lot of people don't enjoy asking for things, especially asking for money, but I don't usually have a problem with it. Sometimes I get a little cringy about asking certain people for certain things, if it's a bit of a stretch, sometimes if you've already asked somebody for a lot of things and you ask for one more thing. Ask for one more thing and cold calls. Cold calls are a little bit challenging sometimes, but you reap what you sow, I guess, and when you get a yes, it's always pretty exciting. I think I've done a good job, though, in fundraising for the event, because a lot of the previous sponsors have come in and you can say that, okay, well, they've already sponsored you and that you know you're asking them again and it's something that they would have done anyway and okay, yes, but I also feel that right now it's a very complicated time financially a little bit more conservative with their money and with their donations, of course. So I think we've done pretty well.

Working on an event is something that, if you're a regular listener and you listen to my episode about how I came to be a fundraiser way back, way, way back when in the first year of my podcast you'll remember and I'll remind you if you haven't listened to it when I first started out, wanted to get into fundraising or development, as it's called. I really thought that I wanted to work in events because I had done some events in the neighborhood where my business was and I really enjoyed the energy. I really enjoyed the excitement of asking for something and getting a yes Right. And so I thought I wanted to work in events and I, you know, went to USC and I applied for a job in events, but they weren't hiring for that right away. And so they said, well, we need a person in foundation and corporate relations. And I got that job, thinking that I would wait and I would take the job and I would wait until they were hiring for the special events job and I would get that. Well, it turned out that I liked the foundation and corporate relations job so much that I kept it. And then, when I went on and worked in events later on, I thought what was I thinking? It's just, it takes so much energy and it takes so much. You know it's so stressful sometimes. What was I thinking? But in the end, I think I do enjoy working on events. It's exhausting, it's true, and I think that I could never do wedding planning, doing event after event after event after event, or helping out in the marketing catering departments of a hotel. I think that would. I mean it wouldn't be my event, right, but still so I think, considering that the economy right now is a little you know, with the stock market and everything, the economy is a little tight. Needless to say, I think I'm doing pretty well, so that's where we are with that.

I have been scouring the world at large for auction prizes because I'm going to put together a silent auction online. This is the first time that the agency that I'm working for has done this, has had this, and it's actually the first time I've ever done this either. So I'm learning as I go and I'm trying to figure it out, and it's challenging, needless to say, but I think it's going to turn out great because people everywhere will be able to bid and win these prizes and I've gotten some great things. I spent a lot of time soliciting these prizes online and that's how you do it now. I mean, most of them you can request online. So that was a lot of fun and I've gotten 60 or so. As a team, we've gotten 60 or so prizes and I think there's more to come. So very excited about that, and I've asked for certain things outside of the Los Angeles area.

It used to be easy to get like a hotel in Las Vegas to contribute. But everything that I'm reading about Las Vegas is that some of the hotels have closed. Some of the ones off the strip have closed. Some of the ones on the strip have really pulled back on their staffing to a large extent. They have really cut their staffing substantially and I guess that the Vegas that we knew and loved is not quite the same, which makes me really sad, because Vegas was, and I'm sure there's still, some good spots there and good things to do.

Um, but Vegas used to be so much fun and back in the day when I first started going, you know you could. You could get a free room, you could get a really cheap meal. I mean, okay, you had a good chance of getting sick, maybe over it, but maybe it went and maybe it wasn't the healthiest meal ever. You know, fried food, greasy food, whatever. But uh, it was a lot of fun. And so in today's world they've they've changed things. I think you can get you can still get free, free rooms if you're, you know, good at what you do, but getting cheaper meals, I mean it's better quality food. So that's okay.

But you know, the strip started to charge for parking, which was like come on, you know you're getting all of our money, you don't need to charge for parking. You're getting all of our money, you don't need to charge for parking and you have a lot of parking available. So that seemed like kind of a bad idea to me. Anyway, what do I know? So these are some of the things that I'm thinking about and doing this week and looking forward to gosh, it's already almost May, so then that's going to be the beginning of summer. But, getting ahead of myself, I hope you have had a great week and you've had a great holiday, wherever you are. Maybe it's not a holiday where you're listening, or you haven't had a holiday where you're listening, but I hope that everybody's staying safe and happy and doing what you want to do and enjoying the spring. And well, that's all I have for today. Next week we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me.

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