Monday, October 30, 2006

Treats & Trivia

Last year, my friend Hindi called me with this crazy idea. She asked me to hold a little party for friends that involved playing some kind of trivia game. I guess, in retrospect, I see where she was coming from. I love trivia games and I love parties, especially if there's food involved. I'm just not usually the initiator. When she explained to me that it was to benefit a worthy organization that offers services and support to couples challenged by infertility, I agreed. She did tell me that she'd done it the year before and had a great time, but I was skeptical.

The scheduled evening arrived. I had gotten a packet mailed to me that I was to open at the party. All we did was buy some rugelach, cherry bits, and Mike & Ikes and we were set. Since it was Saturday night, there were no babysitting issues because the hubbies were home (ours was an all girls affair although it certainly doesn't have to be). We opened up the packet to find a whole set of trivia questions. They were set up so cleverly and covered a huge range of topics. Once we decided that we were going to give it our all, our adrenaline pumped full blast for three hours straight, until our time was up. Every cell-phone in the house was in use, the encyclopedias and dictionaries were out, math brains were scribbling away at figures, the fashionistas were spewing forth their knowledge. We were quite a team! When everyone had gone home, I pulled out my fax machine to fax our answers in. As you may have guessed, we placed first in the US. Oh, and my skepticism was out the window. We had so much fun! All in all, 75,000 dollars was raised that night for the organization.

To all my (12) readers out there, get together a group of family and friends and join in this worthy effort. Trust me, you'll love it. It's the most "painless" mitzvah you'll ever perform! Let me know how your party goes....

7 comments:

Sarah Likes Green said...

wow! great effort :) congrats!

Anonymous said...

How is the $ raised? Who pays what for what? Where did the $75,000 come from?
Need more details to run this program.

Ayelet said...

Anon: good question. Everyone who comes to the party contributes 25 dollars. They have a great time! Last year they gave out little b'samim satchels in the shape of a pillow as a "souvenir" to go with the whole theme of traveling on an airplane flight. It was really cute and well done. Very professional, too (not just some photocopied sheets). The host/ess can choose to spring for some refreshments or not. I know some people even go for an all-out melaveh malkah (potluck or otherwise). Do beware: I'm playing to win the Grand Prize this year so you're up for some stiff competition ;).

Ezzie said...

That actually does sound very cool, and it's a smart way for a charity to really raise money. Let people stay home and have a great time with family and friends and do something great in the process.

Sara with NO H said...

I'm SO impressed! I trid playing tiriva once with a couple of kids I was watching and they blew me away. But I think they had the game for a long time and had played a million times anyway. lol Congrats for coming in First and congrats on the money you guys made. I think this was so awesome.

Soccer Dad said...

In past years there's been an Israel based trivia contest/fund raiser like this too. We once participated but didn't win.

Anonymous said...

you sound like fun, it's great yto have a way of helping by playing something healthy and nice!