Thank you to everyone who supported our 6th Annual Hands4Hope - Youth Making A Difference Fall Festival that took place on October 14th and 15th, 2023 along the beautiful waterfront of the El Dorado Hills Town Center. It’s the biggest fundraising event of the year that our youth undertake. It required months of preparation, planning and time.
The Fall Festival Planning Committee began meeting in August to set goals, plan, market, and implement the details of this annual event. Managing the complexity of a large-scale project like the Fall Festival challenged our youth to communicate and collaborate, and broadened their leadership skills.
The youth-led Fall Festival Planning Committee was broken down into four subcommittees: Operations and Finance, Games and Activities, Marketing and Fundraising, and Volunteer Management. This included 4 subcommittee chairs, 15 youth participants and 3 staff mentors and longtime Hands4Hope volunteers, Sara Warden and Shirley Maier, who served as the Adult Leads. The committee worked nearly 250 hours to plan and prepare for the event over several months. On the day of the event, additional volunteers joined the effort. In all, 158 volunteers served 221 shifts over the two day festival.
Together, the youth and their mentors facilitated a wonderful, family-friendly, fun-filled weekend with fall-themed activities, including 15 carnival games, an obstacle course, pumpkin decorating, hay rides, a treat trot, and a special visit from the Barnyard Animal Rescue for families who came out to enjoy the festivities during the two-day event! A total of 798 game tickets and 301 wrist bands were sold. Plus, 293 hayrides were taken, pulled by Doug Veerkamp’s vintage 1920’s tractor.
The result of their efforts was raising more than $18,120 through sponsorships and ticket sales for the Hands4Hope Education and Community Engagement program!
Here’s what our youth had to say about being involved in the Fall Festival Committee this year:
Andrew Ni - Games & Activities Youth Chair:
This was my second year in the Games & Activities committee for the Fall Festival and the first time leading it! This year, we decided to add two new activities: Axe Throwing and the Arts & Crafts booth for our veterans. We also added a Scavenger Hunt, which was very popular among visitors. This Fall Festival was a great success, and I learned so much from serving in a leadership role. I learned how to conduct meetings and also improved my communication and organization skills. It was a very fun experience, and I hope to participate in the Fall Festival again next year!
Vikram Singh - Marketing and Fundraising Youth Chair:
The fall festival committee was a super fun and exciting committee to work on. I really enjoyed being able to cooperate with my friends to create an event for the community!
We are grateful to the local businesses that sponsored this event:
Doug Veerkamp Engineering, El Dorado Hills Town Center, Western Sign Company, Ferguson Financial, Shirley and Mike Maier, Heffernan Insurance Brokers, Marshall Medical Center, Onyx Real Estate, Datwyler Orthodontics, KidStrong, 3 Generations, McDonalds, OTAT Golf League, Nugget & ForkLift, US Bank, Agreeya, and Lees’ Feed.
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