St. Jude is a well-known research hospital especially for children fighting cancer. The hospital depends on donations to help keep itself running, provide medical care for those families who cannot otherwise afford it, and also to research better treatments and cures for many different kinds of cancers. Hosting a marathon is a good way to raise money, but you can increase your donation by adding other events to the marathon.
Bring Your Dimes
At the marathon itself, have people bring and deposit their dimes. Many different fundraisers used to collect pennies, but dimes will raise you money faster, and with inflation up, dimes are not worth as much to people as they once were. Get different schools from your area involved by offering a prize such as a pizza party for the school that brings in the most dimes. You can also leave out buckets where people attending the marathon can drop their dimes, just make sure the buckets are always attended. Of course, you can take other denominations of money, but if you make a game of it, especially for the children, you will find you raise more money. At each bucket, and even for each school, post a picture of a child that is benefiting from the care at St. Jude Research Hospital.
Raffles
Have local companies host a raffle at the marathon to help raise even more money. Ask them to donate things which pertain to their particular business such as a flat screen TV, movie tickets or gift certificates to their restaurant. Have several different items to raffle off to encourage people to buy more tickets. You may want to keep the ticket prices fairly low so people can buy as many tickets as they like. At the end of the marathon you can draw names to see who wins what prize. Make sure you post a time for the drawings so that all those in attendance have a chance to get their name in the pot. All the proceeds from the raffles will benefit St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.
Car Wash
Busy people like to multitask. Have a car wash on the premises of the St. Jude marathon and wash cars while people either are doing their laps or enjoying the festivities. You can either set a price for the car wash or you can just take donations. Sometimes if you just accept donations, you can raise more money than if you would have by charging $5. Set up your car wash area a little bit away from everything else, but where water is easily accessible. Clearly mark the car wash area so that people can park in that area only if they want their car washed. This eliminates you from having to take people's keys and move their cars around, and it also keeps any water mess from disrupting the marathon area. You may want to give people a time frame for when their car will be finished.
Tags: more money, especially children, raise money, raise more, raise more money, Research Hospital