Recently, we have all had to come up with new and creative ways to support our favorite charities. Have you been at home wondering what you can do to help the community? Consider staying in one room of your house all day to show support and fundraise for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It’s super easy. I’ll show you…

Saturday, May 9^th, I committed to completing the new St. Jude #GoToYourRoom Challenge by spending the whole day in a single room of my house (my bedroom) to fundraise and bring awareness to the fact that St. Jude patients often have to spend much of their time quarantined to one room due to compromised immune systems. 

The week before I participated, I posted about the challenge on social media. I also called my friends and family to let everyone know what the challenge was about and when I was going to complete it. St. Jude provided all the materials I needed to get started like videos, photos and a helpful timeline to follow. Easy!

The night before, I gathered all the materials I would need to participate and to stay occupied throughout the day. I gathered my book; nail polish to fix my nails; pens and paper to practice calligraphy; all my work materials; my prom dress; and more. After all, I committed to staying in one room a full 10 hours.

At 9am sharp the day of, the fun started! I used the provided timeline and chose to go live each hour to share what I was doing and the mission of St. Jude. Considering that I had never gone live on social media before, my first video went well.  I wasn’t totally sure when to start talking but the rest was easy. After my third video I started to get the hang of it.

I’m not much of a social media person most of the time so this fundraiser was an interesting new challenge for me. I was worried that people would get annoyed with how often I was posting or that my posts wouldn’t look as professional as I wanted them too. My worries were subdued with incredible enthusiasm. People I hadn’t talked to in years saw my posts, donated to my fundraiser, and posted words of encouragement. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is without a doubt a worthy cause and people were thrilled to help me reach my goal.

By 6pm, I had surpassed my goal of $500 and donations were still coming in. With support from my friends and family, my challenge ended with a total of $700 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
You can make this difference too just by spending the day in one room and sharing some information about your experience, the hospital, and patients. Even if you are not someone who enjoys checking social media every day, I highly recommend committing to this challenge in support of St. Jude. It’s easy and fun; you never know who will be willing to support your fundraiser.

Participate today! Simply start by registering your team and determining your team’s participation timeframe. I recommend setting the timeframe as a month for large groups so everyone has an opportunity to participate for one day no matter how crazy their schedule.

For more information please visit epsilonsigmaalpha.org/GoToYourRoom.
 
Written by: Mackeigan Wuest