Doing Some Serious Fundraising

While we wait to get Chrysalis House opened, we have been having some serious fundraising going on. I feel that it is very important to do this without getting into debt. In fact, we are completely debt-free. We have been relying on volunteer help, churches, and civic organizations giving of their time, energy and money to help raise money to get the doors opened. Since we closed on the building and the land in February of 2004, we have been spending our time to gain sponsorship, raise awareness of the rising epidemic of homelessness, and raising money. Here are just some of our fundraisers.

This is a rendition of a Civil War quilt that is being raffled off to help raise money for Chrysalis. A group of ladies from Lake Country Neighbors at Lake Fork made this and have been working on quilting it every Thursday. Once they have finished quilting, they will start the raffling. It is beautiful and would it look like I was cheating if I actually won it. I will be buying several tickets for myself.

Standing in front of the quilt, Lake Country Neighbors presented our organization with a check for $2200 to help raise the roof. We have raised a total of $27,000 to replace the roof. LCN raised the money by having their own garage sale and made this amount in one day. The group is made up of about 55 women or more that all live around Lake Fork. They have been a huge blessing and their motto is "GET ER DONE", and these women walk their talk. They are huge doers and such a miracle for me. I love everyone of them. From left to right is Betty Davis, Pam Bowden, Me, Kathie Ruiz and Lyn Baldwin. These ladies are some of my new best friends.

Tom and Suzy Post wanted to do a fundraiser for Chrysalis House and brought Mark Schultz to Sulphur Springs to do a concert. He is one of my favorite Christian artist and I listen to him all the time, he is a really neat guy. Standing left to right is my youngest son, Zachary, Mark Schultz and me. We really enjoyed his concert, it was Awesome!!!

Glenda Burns on the far left sells Beauti-Control make-up and did some work at Chrysalis House for us and applied for a grant through the foundation that her company started, W.H.O. (Women Helping Others) and raised $10,000 for Chrysalis. We used the money for new sheet rock and various other materials that we needed for reconstruction. Standing in the back is Steven Janway, Mike Dodd, Kris Childress (board member), Shirley Lane, behind me is my husband Chris Pearson and Dr. Stan Foy, they were all there when the check was presented.

This was a check that was presented to the organization from Farmer's Electric. Last Fall, I got a call from a lady that worked at Farmer's and she wanted to know a little about our organization, she told me that they were going to start a foundation and asked me to apply once it was started. I did and Farmer's Electric out of Greenville presented us with a check for $5000. This money went towards the roofing materials.

The next few pictures are from a Christmas tour that we gave during the month of December (of course). Every Thursday, we had open house and invited the community to come in for cookies and other desserts, coffee, wassail, and hot chocolate. Me and another lady Shirlee State decided to do this two weeks before, we cleaned the whole 27,862 square foot building and decorated every room and had close to 15 Christmas trees all through the building and it still almost looked bare. These are just a few of the pictures that I had already on my computer. I will post more later, probably around Christmas time. When you first walk in, this is a temporary office that you see.

We put up a Santa that my mother purchased for our family two years ago, just for the kids that came by for the Chrysalis Christmas tour. My mother bought this for our family and thought that we would love it, but she sent my sister to go pick it up and my sister didn't read the box. We didn't realize that it only sang in Spanish until we opened it and turned it on. It was the funniest and best Christmas that I could remember in a long time, it was some Christmas memory that we will never forget. We laughed and laughed so until we almost wet our pants.

This is a simple Nativity scene that was so precious and looked so gorgeous. First United Methodist Church of Sulphur Springs renovated, decorated and furnished this room. It will be a counseling room for the women and is very peaceful and beautiful. We appreciate every group that has contributed to Chrysalis House.

This is an over view of the front area that is not yet completed. At this point, we still hadn't finished decorating and we added so much more that was gorgeous.

This fundraiser was the Chrysalis Fair that we had in the Spring. We had a dunking booth where we dumped all of the local pastors throughout the city from every church and every denomination who were willing. This just happens to be my former pastor Dr. Bob McCartney who just moved to Wichita Falls in West Texas, we will really miss him. He is a great preacher. He is also a triathlete and is winning in his age division. Good man and he and his wife are expecting a baby in October, their first.

As part of the Chrysalis Fair, we also had a bake sale going on. These ladies are busy setting up for the great sale.

At the fair, we also had different groups coming to sing and play. This little girl was part of the Ramsey family and all of their children played and sang, they were awesome. All of the kids played an instrument, very talented.

We had a man that brought his alpaca's. The children had a good time with them and loved looking and playing with them, they were very gentle and such an eye catcher.

This is another one of the Ramsey family members.

The Ramsey family playing while by standers are looking on. They were awesome!!!

What is a fair without a monkey. I brought the lady that owns him in from Dallas and for some reason, the monkey loved this man. He kept taking off his hat and putting it on himself. He was precious and did all sorts of tricks. He was great with the kids and a great attraction. If we ever do another fair, we will have to have the monkey back. Every one's favorite attraction.

This is me posing for the camera at our Chrysalis Garage Sale that lasts 3 days. It takes us a whole day to set out everything. You wouldn't believe all that we have donated, and it brings in quite a bit of money, we average in a 3 day sale around $4000, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on what we have donated. We usually have a lot of furniture, but it is very hard work. We are very cheap too, and we have gotten famous for our sales, we sell all clothes for a quarter. We are on the corner of a busy intersection and we seldom have to advertise. The sale takes up the whole parking lot from front to back, from left to right. Can you spell H-U-G-E!!!!

More of our garage sale items that we mark so cheap.

More items, and we make up the prices as we go along, too much work having to price everything. Plus, it is a lot more fun just making up the rules as you go along. That way, you don't have to think. Most of the time, we just ask, what would you pay? and usually, they end up donating more than what we would have asked for.

Just a tiny portion of the toys that we get donated.

This are two tables that you can't really see full of nothing but jewelry. We have local businesses donated to our organization. It is a tax deduction for them and a blessing for us. We also have businesses donate furniture too, that is where we get a lot of our good stuff. We mark these things higher since they are all new.

That is just some of what we do. Since we closed on the building, we have raised close to $500,000 in money, materials and donations. We still need another $450,000 left to finish with all renovations. We have replaced all 95 windows with Low-E energy efficient windows, replaced approximately $64,000 in kitchen equipment (it was all stolen just before we signed all the paperwork, our copper throughout the entire building was also stolen). We have replaced around $10,000 in new toilets, sinks and hardware, all new sheet rock throughout the building. We had our sprinkler system fixed free of charge by Metro Fire and Safety out of Dallas (we love those guys), we have had $20,000 from the Mary Kay Ash Charitable gift Foundation (this was my first grant ever and it was only for $10,000, they doubled it to $20,000).

Our needs are still great, based on bids from 2007, we still need:

Electrical-$217,500

Plumbing-$52,920

Construction-$43,991

HVAC (9 units)-$39,664

Fire Alarm-$27,250

Roofing)$27,000 (which we have raised)

Outside doors-$24,000

Insulation-$12,500

Sprinkler heads (over 200)-$5000

I know that it seems overwhelming and I have been told to give up, but God has not called me to be a quitter. He has called me to persevere. Whenever I am tired and want to quit (it is only a feeling) God always reminds me of Noah and him taking 120 years to build the ark, what would have happened if he had been a quitter. God has strengthened my faith, my walk, my endurance, my perseverance, my gentleness, and He has had a lot of work to do on me personally stripping away all of the dross that keeps coming to the surface of my heart. I have to say, there is some ugly stuff that He is having to strip away. He always prepares a person before for His call. He equips the called, we are all called for something. I love to say that God loves to do extraordinary things through ordinary people, so that He can have all the credit, all the glory, honor and praise. For a long time, I wanted all of his praise, honor and glory, so you can guess at how much humbling He has had to do within me.

I couldn't close this post without adding this: if you are reading this and you feel called to give with your time, money, energy, prayers, I pray that you answer that call. If God is convicting you to step out in faith to do something that you feel is just insane, but you know His voice and you know that it is Him that is calling you, step out in faith knowing that He will equip you through every step. He loves for His children to know that He will take care of them and make their paths straight. I personally am not qualified to do what I am doing, I don't have a degree, but God has called and equipped me in every step. If I hadn't obeyed and answered when I thought He was calling me to do something so crazy, I wouldn't have that building helping others that were just like me. Oh, He is big enough to fill my shoes and use someone else, He doesn't need me at all, but I believe He wants to use me and personally, I want to be used in a big way. I will not be able to change the world, but I hope that I contribute in the tiny part of the world that I live in. God Bless you if you are being called right now.