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To help raise money for the National Brain Tumor Society my entire family held a fundraiser. We came up with the name Outsmart Brain Tumors for Leeboy since we lost my step dad to a brain tumor (glioblastoma multiforme, which seems to be the most common but most aggressive kind of brain tumor). Once the tumor was discovered he battled the tumors for 3 months. He lost his short battle one year ago. I shared more of my feelings on the one year mark yesterday. Back to our National Brain Tumor Society fundraiser.

We wanted something fun that the whole family could come by and enjoy. My Mom was the brains behind the entire fundraiser though I and my entire family were very involved. We had a carnival style fundraiser with all kinds of games that both children and adults could play. My mom got a lot of her game ideas from the Minute to Win it game show. We also had face painting, an inflatable bounce house, a dunking booth, corn hole, food and silent auctions.

Thanks to Oriental Trading we were able to get some of the game prize toys. I chose plush snakes, lip whistles, duck beak whistles, flashing rings, flashing vampire teeth and different colored goldfish. I thought the noise makers and the flashing rings and teeth would be the prizes chosen first but can you guess what was the popular toy? The plush snake. I spotted them all around the fundraiser. Kids had them on like belts, around their necks and even using them like jump ropes. The lip and duck beak whistles seemed to be the second most popular choices of prizes. I think I did pretty well in choosing toys that the kids would enjoy.

We started our day at 7am setting everything up. We opened up the fun at 8am and had the carnival style part of  fundraiser went on until 6pm then we all went home to freshen up and came back at 8pm to have an adult only dance with a band. It was an exhausting but very meaningful and successful day. It felt good to raise money for the National Brain Tumor Society in remembrance of my step dad Lee.

I made 72 cupcakes with grey icing (the brain cancer ribbon color). They weren't anything fancy but brought in some extra fundraiser cash. At the end of the day we raised about $1500. We have another fundraiser in the works, possibly a car wash, but not for sure yet. I want to thank the sponsors for helping our fundraiser be as successful as it was and to all of my family members who took time out of their schedules to help run the fundraiser.

disclaimer: Oriental Trading was not a National Brain Tumor Society fundraiser sponsor. I was given gift cards to make a purchase and I chose to use the gift cards towards the toy prizes for our fundraiser.