First thanks to everyone for the kind words. Please understand that there is a lot of other people involved than just me. I simply provide the place and help organization of this event. thru generosity of others are we able to do this on a larger scale without much burden.
I need to do something similar for my community. Any tips for us how to organize?
TeeJaeh57 , Events like this for both Hunting and fishing here are now done thru a few different of church organizations. This Particular event is with a organization Sponsored by Southside Baptist Church Brotherhood called Outdoors with Friends. While this was formed and head quartered out of a larger church (Southside Baptist) the Organization itself is comprised of people from many different churches. This was formed after noticing that local people wanted to donate / do more for local /regional participants rather than just give to the national organizations.
By setting up or using a nonprofit (such as church) to put on the event opens the door people to have tax breaks on their donations. Local business donate. Local owned Food stores donate food, Insurance company donated insurance for the event, bait and tackle store donated items, people from several different churches throw in a little cash to cover misc. needs. Volunteers from local help setup, cook, people fish, and clean up when it is over. Banners are made for the business that donate (pic of one (of a few made) attached) showing them some love. The biggest thing I would say to making it a success is people being open to anyone that has a question about what is going on and were the money goes. Funny business in this parts pretty much equals no business. I will see if I can get someone from the SBC brotherhood to send me some information to forward to you on how they done it.
In the end it is pretty easy after you get thru the initial setup and the learning curve of what works for your group. I would say that after you do a couple events it gets pretty simple. For insurance purposes have people fill out a participation form and from this you can have a data base of contacts to work with for future events participants. Volunteers are surprisingly easier to come by with people from multiple churches participating. Most participants here are generally within a 2 hr drive and volunteers within a 1 hr drive.
BTW I attached a pic of that stainless steel sink I mentioned earlier.
To those of you going thru difficult times may God be with you. My personal difficult times is what pushed me towards hosting these events.
LovinLivin thanks for pointing that out in the picture I did notice that
