Draws for paws

About a month ago, Claire had asked me when she was going to do more stuff for the animals. That’s what she calls it, “Stuff for the animals.”

Six year olds.

I’m very much a control freak, but not in a type A way, more or less, it’s just easier if I do it. Over the past few years and fundraisers, however, I’ve learned to relax and let Claire do what she needs to do. When we first started the fundraising for the animals, it started with a, “Mom, can I ask some of my friends….” Now granted, she had just turned five, so I really didn’t expect her to do a lot of the work, but then she did. She kept tally of all the goods as they came in, asked me to post links, picked out what to put on the Amazon.com wishlist. I was kind of impressed.

I had two camps of people: The ones who said I should get a lot of the credit and those who said I should be proud of Claire.

The reason I didn’t talk about my part very much was because, simply put, I honestly didn’t have that much to do with it. Yes, I organized spinathons and created amazon wishlists, but in the best way Claire could, she was there with me, every step of the way. So yes, I was very proud of her.

So here we are, again, raising funds for the Animal Rescue League. I say we, because I, too, am running for them. I did last year, and was pretty quiet about it, but this year I’m actually going to talk about it!

How are we going to raise funds this year, you ask? Oh it’ll be fun.

Claire and I will both be selling raffle tickets for Pens tickets, as we did last year.

We will be hosting another spinathon in April, like we did last year.

But what’s new?

Claire has decided to sell artwork. With a little help from me (read using a saw) she will create 12×12 paintings from plywood, newspaper, decoupage, and acrylic paint. Think Jackson Pollock meets a soon to be seven year old. I’m kind of excited about this.

When she was talking about how she wants to sell paintings, I thought to myself, I’m an artist, too. DUH. So I figured I could sell some animal portraits for donations.

They’re not, you know, professional, and all, but they look like the animal I’m drawing, so there’s that! I typically sell an 8×10 animal portrait for between 50-75 dollars.

This Sunday I’m running with a shelter dog at the CMU Donut Dash, in which I will run a mile, eat a half a dozen donuts, then run another mile. I’m taking donations for that, too! CLICK HERE!

If you think I can do it, throw some money my way. Think I’m going to puke? Give me money for that, too! We all win! Especially if the dog eats the vomit.

So, in the next few weeks Claire will begin creating her masterpieces for the animals. I’ll draw anyone’s animal for donations (just email me! Cassandrelu@gmail.com!) and we will be offering raffle tickets. Let’s do this fundraising thing!