The Big Splash! Gala

This was the first big event that I attended and helped out with, with my placement site, The Dallas Leadership Foundation. The Dallas Leadership Foundation is a Christian not-for-profit organization that serves severely distressed neighborhoods, including those with poverty rates of 27.4 percent or more. The Gala was an event to help celebrate what has been done over the years through the work that the Dallas Leadership Foundation does and to help raise support in order to continue doing the work that the Foundation does and to impact the lives of more families and people.

Before this event, I never had much experience of helping with events, so this was a first. I became in charge of getting together volunteers for the event. This hardest part of this position was to get volunteers to actually come to the event. I originally had 24 people say that they would volunteer and then had 16 people arrive to help. This caused some stress on my part since things had to be changed and adjusted so that we had volunteers spread out and evenly placed to help direct the guests throughout the Aquarium. However, even with some people not showing up, we had enough people to help and things ended up going smoothly.

Even though I was originally the volunteer coordinator, I also ended up helping be a hostess and show guests to their tables. This had me talking to a lot of people (yeah, I am starting to have to be an “extravert” and be talkative…) Through this event; I have gained a better idea of other parts of ministry. Ministry is not always direct service but it also what goes on behind the scenes that make the direct service possible. Without funds and without support, then direct service would not be possible. That’s what the Gala was about; it was about getting funds, support, and celebrating what has been done through the direct service of the Dallas Leadership Foundation. This event helps make it possible for the Leadership Foundation to do what it does and impact many families, children, and neighborhoods in the Dallas area.

In the past, I had been apart of the direct service of ministry and didn’t know what took place behind the scenes. With all the work that went into this event, it was good to gain a better idea, see, and take part in what goes on behind the scenes that many people don’t realize or think about since many people only see the results of the direct services not what goes on the rest of the time.

Just want to say great job to my placement site, the Dallas Leadership Foundation on a great event on October 3.. The Big Splash! Gala and for all the hard work that was put into the event to make it a success! It's was good helping you guys with this event (my first big event with the Dallas Leadership Foundation and more to come since this is just the beginning!)