Within a year of purchasing Venue Salon in Lakeland, Florida, Patricia Uiterwyk threw her first fundraising event. As an Aveda salon, she wanted to support one of Aveda’s favorite philanthropies, so she chose BCRF (Breast Cancer Research Foundation).

Source: Venue Salon

“One of the first stylists I hired, Crystal Whatley, lost her mom to breast cancer,” says Uiterwyk. “Her story inspired us to do more than sell hand cream to benefit BCRF—we wanted to do something bigger.”

Source: Venue Salon

Growing with the Community

For her first BCRF fundraiser in 2018, Uiterwyk promoted a small event in her salon. A local brewery set out their finest craft beers in her shampoo bowls, and Uiterwyk provided the food and entertainment.

“We did a spin the wheel, a kiss contest on Post-It notes and a raffle,” she says. “That first year we raised around $1,400.”

Having the event in the salon was fun, but disruptive to the work environment. And the space wasn’t big enough to take the fundraiser to the next level.

“Last year, we decided to turn our fundraiser into a proper charity event with a sit-down dinner and gala at the Lakeland Country Club,” Uiterwyk says. “I’m a member at the club, so we can use space free of charge, which helps us with pricing. And they give us a deal on food as well—the chef lost his mother to breast cancer and helped us create the perfect menu.”

Other members of the Lakeland community have also become aware of Venue’s annual event and have gotten involved.

“Lakeland is very supportive of small businesses and entrepreneurs,” Uiterwyk says. “People want to donate raffle items, make monetary donations, or even do their own fundraiser and donate to our BCRF page.”

A Record-Breaking Year

This year, Uiterwyk held Venue’s annual fundraiser for BCRF on the first Saturday in October, a strategy that has proven successful.

“Doing it early allows us to assess how we did and continue to raise money through the rest of the month.”

“We turn our lobby pink in October—we wear pink, sell Hand Relief and do an internal raffle of a spa basket, drawing our winner on Facebook Live at the end of the month.”

For the 2022 event, the salon sold tickets for $75/person or a 10-person table for $1,000. The price of the ticket included dinner, champagne and entertainment.

Source: Venue Salon

“We worked with the director of the country club, who suggested we do a 50/50 raffle,” Uiterwyk says. “We also created a donation table filled with items from local businesses we raffled off.”

A guest speaker shared her story of surviving breast cancer, bringing special awareness to metastatic breast cancer, which is fatal and needs funding to find a cure.

“BCRF is very transparent about using its funds to support metastatic breast cancer research,” Uiterwyk says.

During dinner, a string quartet from Harrison School of Arts played pro bono.

“Through our event, the quartet now has a paid gig at the Lakeland Country Club,” Uiterwyk says. “And I hired a DJ who has a photo booth and props for after-dinner dancing and fun, and an event photographer to capture it all.”

The bulk of the work on the event is done by the Venue team and their friends and family. They sell raffle tickets, set up, clean up, act as ushers, and fill in where needed.

With 101 guests in attendance, Venue had its most successful event to date, raising more than $18k (more than double last year’s $7k).

A Lasting Impact in the Community

But Uiterwyk is just getting started, finding ways to make the event more successful every year.

“For example, this year, we started earlier and pursued bigger donors through our network of family and friends,” she says. “Aveda Florida donated a beautiful hero basket with a selection of all our hero lines, in addition to local businesses making big donations.”

Making it simple to participate has been one key to Uiterwyk’s success.

“BCRF allows you to set up a page for direct donations,” she says. “And we put QR codes at stations and let guests buy raffle tickets for two months. We also sold t-shirts and had some stylists who did personal raffles, giving away a hair cut or color service.”

Venue’s social media director created reels and posts, interviewing team members about why they are participating, which evoked conversations with guests about the event.

“I love the buy-in I have with my team and my community,” Uiterwyk says. “The money we raise comes back into our county.”