Expanding Awareness

20161007_174611_1476113059337Last Friday, Youth Odyssey held a profit share to raise funds for our CCISD school programs. But this profit share wasn’t like any profit share we’d done before. We usually focus on the Corpus Christi area to promote Youth Odyssey and this time we went to College Station, Texas! Some may wonder why we chose to go so far to hold a profit share and it’s actually pretty simple. Youth Odyssey has a very close connection with our fundraising source, Perrine Winery, and that source is their daughter (me)!

20161007_215234_1476113058498The plans were already in the works for me to be in College Station that weekend for the Aggie game and I decided to try and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, and asked if they would be willing to host a profit share for Youth Odyssey. Being wonderful parents they said of course! They did warn me that the date we decided upon fell on “First Friday” which is a big draw in the town next to College Station and it may effect the turnout; I wasn’t terribly concerned.

S20161007_215129_1476113058593o we get there and set up a table with a slide show and some information about who we are. We placed flyers on the tables and then we waited. The weather was nice and we were enjoying the atmosphere when a lovely lady came up to our table and Becky, Youth Odyssey’s Executive Director, makes a kind of squeal “Oh My Gosh!” As it turns out, that lady had been a part of Youth Odyssey about ten years ago and was now attending grad school at Texas A&M. Talk about a small world! We talked about old times and how Youth Odyssey has changed over the years and they both caught up with one another. It was really cool to see the results of what happens when our kids graduate from Youth Odyssey.

20161007_220619_1476113058349The reunion was an exciting highlight from the evening but the night was a pretty slow one, and just when we thought it might have been a bust, in the last hour and a half of the event we got a wave of people who wanted to come and try some wine and get a glass here and a bottle there. We were able to talk to quite a few people who had no idea who we were and what we did; all of them were impressed with our statistics. With the help of that last minute wave of enthusiasts, we were able to raise $289!

20161007_201011_1476113058937It wasn’t a killing but it’s definitely nothing to laugh at considering we usually have a pretty good group of people we can get to come to our profit share events here in Corpus. In College Station, we had to kind of go in cold and hope that people showed up and were interested in seeing what we were about. Though the night wasn’t jammed packed with people it was a lot of fun. The atmosphere was relaxing, weather was great, and Becky and I got to hang out with my dad and family (who are pretty great people), learn a lot about wine and just enjoy the company of others while shamelessly plugging Youth Odyssey to anyone who would listen.

I want say a big thank you to my parents and Perrine Winery for helping us out and pushing us forward with our school programing for the 2016 school year!

Our next profit share is October 25th at Tapology Texas Pub. It is a pub trivia night that starts at 8pm and goes until 10pm. It’ll be lots of fun so check it out!