Fundraising idea NEEDS HELP!!!

[Bigheady57]

Hi everyone,
I need everyone's brilliant ideas here. I am a paramedic in a extremely tight knit, busy EMS system in MA. Recently a co-worker and close friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a whole, the people the work in the system as very close and answer the call for one another. We are always having benefits for people in need in our system including, police fire and local hospitals. My co-worker has been working in the system for over 15 years and is considered the back bone of our department. Her and her husband (a local police officer) are challenged with the tough recovery, medical bills are mounting and are both running low on sick time. As a department we are having multiple benefits to try and lighten the load off them. Myself and a few other co-workers brew beer as hobby and are trying to come up with a fundraising idea to help. I know there are laws against selling homebrew in the state so I am looking here for creativity. I have the ability to brew up to 15gallons at a time and can keg and bottle. PLEASE help me make this homebrew fundraiser a reality. All ideas welcome.

Thanks in advance for helping us "Chase a cure" (our motto as her last name is chase)

 

[JohnSand]

See if you can get a local brewery involved.
Best wishes to your friend.

 

[Homercidal]

Connecting with a brewery is likely your only option. I can't think of any way that beer brewed at home is going to be legal to sell in any fashion. The laws are very strict on selling homebrew. However, with the help of a commercial brewery, you may be able to use your equipment in their facility, under their licenses, and brew a benefit batch to sell.

One other option may be to tap into a beer festival (pun intended). As a Homebrew CLUB, (In Michigan) you are allowed to serve samples to club members. Basically all you need is to advertise a club competition, and have people place their email addresses on a sheet to sign up as prospective club members. They can then sample homebrew brought by club members (you guys) and score them. They income would come from the entry fees to get into the beer festival.

The only downside is that I believe the samples have to 3-4 ounces max. The upside is that small variations in recipe means you can serve many of these small samples to make up for it. I think the competition I entered into there were up to 10 of us serving 5 gallon batches in a major beer festival in Traverse City. The 5 gallons each went pretty quickly.

 

[mongoose33]

We have a benefit here for a scholarship fund. Each year a local chef auctions off a 5-course meal for some number of people (8 or 12, can't recall). He buys the food, prepares it, serves it.

Perhaps you might auction off a homebrew tasting night? You're giving it away, not selling it. Souvenir tasting glasses? Perhaps glasses with your EMS logo on them?

Or failing that, a tasting night with different commercial beers, from DIPA to Vanilla Porter to Lagers to...whatever?

You might call up your Alcohol Control Board or whatever they call it in MA, and ask them of any of this is possible without running afoul of the MA laws on distributing homebrew.

Perhaps a variation on that theme might work?

 

[IslandLizard]

It depends on your State's regulations, but in MD homebrew clubs apparently can serve homebrew (samples) during fundraisers benefitting charities and possibly other causes. Not sure how far that extends. People pay for admission to the event and all proceeds go to that cause. Homebrew is not sold. But the amount of funds an event like that can raise is quite limited of course.

As said before, maybe cook something up with a local brewery or other entity if you want to do something beer related. A commemorative glass is always great and makes it more enticing for donators.

If you really want to raise a lot of donations, don't limit yourself to beer, there are thousands of ways, do some browsing. Just avoid buying "packages" where the cream gets skimmed off by the one who's selling them. And it does take a few more people than just yourself to organize something bigger. You could possibly start a foundation for the benefit of your co-worker and her family.

 

[TexasDroughtBrewery]

So I have a friend of mine who has cancer they have done the following fund raisers successfully.

GoFundMe
Set up a Golf Tournament (a lot of work)
Crossfit his wife works at they did a work out fundraiser event
Some restaurants do a 1 day or 1 weekend only 20% of sales goto this cause.

Its a lot of work to get all of these things setup and many hours from volunteers but it is possible.