The Internet of things!

I was having a beer or 3 when I saw a post from someone I went to HS with who was not going to be able to make it to our high school reunion. I wanted to go too, but babies and other responsibilities will keep me away this time.

In about 20 minutes I put together some text, grabbed a picture from Facebook, and added a pay pal button for people to donate cash to the cause. That was Thursday night my time. 
I mailed a few of the popular people in my class and then waited. The next day I posted it to my profile, soon a few class mates with a little prodding were doing the same. That was Friday morning my time. 

By Saturday morning we were up too 340 dollars and not long after that a couple of big donations, you know who you are, came in and we were over the 400 dollar mark. 

I do not like asking people for money personally, but feel this was a great way to show off the school spirit that made my time at Lake Shore　High School the reason I would move back there if I could. 
NOTES: Things you might want to be aware of if you try this. 

Pay Pal;

1. They take a % of your donations as their handling fee. If you need to raise X amount of dollars, shoot for X + 7% to cover that. I did not know this so.  
2. If you do not have a Pay Pal Account in the USA you can not set up a straight forward donate button that allows people to make what ever donation the feel they want to. Instead I set up 4 different payment sizes ranging from 2 to 50 dollars. ($2.00, $10.00, $20.00, $50.00). 
3. The easiest way to get the cash to the person you want is through Pay Pal. Have them set up a account and simply choose Send money and enter their e-mail address. 

Facebook and other social media; I like Facebook and twitter they are good ways of staying connected but do not count on it to do all the work for you. You will still need to make people aware of what your doing and post constant updates on progress to keep people interested in the idea. 

Finally, Kim I hope you have a good time. I put up a page and kept people interested (most of them were pretty excited from the start), but the people who donated, really did all the work. 

E./