Join a Team. Cabrni Madness 2010

You're all familiar with basketball, tennis, and other sports tournaments. So, let me introduce you to the Cabrini Madness Fund Raising Tournament.

Right now teams of inner city 7th to 12th grade students, volunteers, staff, and friends are forming to compete with each other between now and April 1, 2010 to see which team can raise the most money to fund the Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection operations for the coming year.

The teams will compete on our http://www.giveforward.org/cabrinitmc page. You can see three teams already on the site.

There can be 5-10 "official" members per team. Each must include at least (1) current or former volunteer, (1) current or former student, (1) current or former staff, volunteer coordinator, club leader, or board member, AND (1) person from outside the program (e.g. best friend, spouse, co-worker).

The teams will be reaching out to others, using all of the creativity they can muster, to encourage people to make donations of any size, on the Give Forward Page. Thus, if you want to contribute to the "Guaranteed Victory" team, you'd go to http://www.giveforward.org/guaranteedvictory/ and make your donation using a credit card and/or pay pal. As donations are received, the top three teams will show on the home page for CC, T/MC, and each donor's name will be listed.

Thus, while there are 5-10 official members, each donor is really joining a team by making a donation. And, to help your team win, you can reach out to your own friends, family and co-workers.

This is already generating lots of enthusiasm and team-building at Cabrini Connections. As some of our Facebook friends, alumni and former volunteers join teams, it will do even more. If you'd like to help a team form contact El Da'Sheon Nix at 312-492-9614.

There are already three teams on line, so you can join one today with your donation.

I was recruited last night by two 7th grade girls. You can meet Ana and Ayana and their volunteers at http://cabrinipip.blogspot.com/2010/01/volunteer-spotlight-cassia-overk.html

Our team is called "Give Hope" which is what your donations do to help Cabrini Connections. You can support us at http://www.giveforward.org/givehope/

We'll be providing more information next week and in following weeks, and as each team promotes itself, you'll see some of the talent and opportunities that a tutor/mentor program can make available to inner city kids. We hope that others will help these types of programs be available to kids in all parts of Chicago and in other cities.