by Amy Ferrone
On Saturday October 15th, I was a part of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night Walk in Princeton, NJ. Approximately 2,500 people were on hand in Forrestal Village to walk with lighted balloons and help raise money for the fight against blood cancers. It was also a day of firsts for me as an event planning assistant: my first all-day event and my first outdoor event. It was amazing to see exactly what goes into staging and executing an event attended by so many people. The walkers did not start arriving until 4:00PM, but the day started hours earlier, with tent setups and positioning mapped out and assembly of the tent city beginning. Once I oriented myself to both the map and the site, I was educated enough to start answering questions and helping out where needed.
Three things that I used during the preparations: a box cutter, a generator for a 12-foot high light tower, and an Allen wrench. Here is what I found out about being the on-site planner for an event of this magnitude: it’s all about juggling!
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society staff had a vanload of disparate items, ranging from signs, food donations, carnations, and what seemed like a million cases of water that needed to be unloaded and distributed. This is where the box cutter came into play – three of the signs that were supposed to fit into metal stands did not fit. I found a box cutter from one of the tent guys and went to work. They sure fit by the time I was done (and I’m happy to report, no injuries!). Next came the Allen wrench – there were actually two of them used to assemble the site map stand. I was able to manage that fine, but not knowing where to put them so that we would have them at the end of the day, I held them in my pocket for the next 10 hours – and do you know how hard it is to use an Allen wrench in the pitch-dark? Thank goodness for the lovely volunteer with a flashlight app on her phone! Whatever help I was able to provide on Saturday, as rudimentary as it was, I was certainly not going to lose the Allen wrenches.
“All hands on deck” would be a great way to describe much of the day – help wherever you can. Unload boxes, unpack signs, tell volunteers where to go, keep track of all the vendors’ deliveries, learn how to operate the generators for the light towers, hand out balloons , and clean up, clean up, clean up! The coordination of all the volunteers was a massive undertaking – you want volunteers there early, but what if the equipment they are going to use is late? I guess there’s never a worry of too many volunteers showing up, but you also don’t want people standing around with nothing to do. The 40 mph winds didn’t deter us too much – thank goodness they died down by the time the walkers began arriving. The balloon task was definitely labor-intensive – well over 3,000 balloons were blown up, then had to be distributed individually – and the wire cords for the special light-up balloons did not get the memo about not getting tangled!
It turned out to be a wonderful, successful day, and a really inspiring event. Volunteers, walkers and staff were all so engaged and supportive of each other, and the atmosphere was so upbeat. Aside from being completely exhausted and having my first case of “event headache,” I felt privileged to see and be part of such a great event, and to be able to truly appreciate all the work that goes into it.