This past year was an amazingly busy year here at the Fishstrong Foundation filled with new events, expansions, volunteers and recipients. As we plan for the new year expansions and events it is nice to reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we are planning on going.
How far did we reach in 2019?
By the end of 2019 the Fishstrong Foundation helped 17 families in North Carolina with life altering illnesses. Through the support of our sponsors, volunteers and event patrons we were able to donate an amazing $30,000 to our recipient families. The community helped us in more ways than one with an amazing attendance of 5000 patrons at our Halloween event and 2000 patrons at our Christmas event. Along with the record breaking number of attendants we had for our events this year we had 235 new volunteers helping us run our events.
Our Growth and Challenges
With all of the patron support we’ve been getting over the past years it only made sense for us to not only expand our community but to also expand our attractions. To accommodate the swell in volunteers we added a makeup room in the trail to store everything needed to get our volunteers ready for events as efficiently as possible. Our Lights Out walking trail couldn’t be left out in the expansion and with how terrifying the walking trail is we needed a way to protect patrons from the beasts inside with a new one way entrance. Along with adding new trail attractions for Halloween in the short time between switching from Halloween to Christmas we were able to build a beautiful new covered bridge that quickly became a favorite this holiday season. In true Fishstrong fashion while the expansion bug was upon us we took the opportunity to add an entirely new event to the calendar, we had so much fun hosting and coordinating the Fishstrong Zombie Run and can’t wait for it to be another of our annual events. While adding new attractions to our trials we thought it would only make sense to extend the trails and update/add electrical accommodations where they were needed.
Not every year is without its challenges and of course 2019 was no different. All of the expansions brought with them challenges to overcome and the biggest one seemed to be volunteer support. Last year we struggled with maintaining consistent volunteer numbers to help us with our events, some show nights we were in a tight spot to fill all of our scenes but in true Fishstrong fashion we made it work to the best of our abilities. Along with filling our volunteer needs we were, like many in the community, still recovering from Hurricane Florence that left our trails looking spooky even during the daytime. Thankfully, the debris has been cleared to the best of our abilities and the trails are looking better than ever.
What’s Next?
Reflecting on everything we did and overcame last year must leave you thinking, “So what’s next?”. Well the biggest project we have for this 2020 year at the Fishstrong Foundation is the construction of our building. We have been planning for a short while now to have a warehouse to work as our base of operations throughout the year and this year we are finally building it. It will be where our volunteers go to sign in/ out, get ready for the events, and where we will be building props and sets for the events. Along with our warehouse we'll be adding mulch to the trails to help prevent washout, the mulch was graciously donated by a contractor from Camp Lejeune. Much like last year we will also be adding a new event, First Annual Pig Cook-off and Firework Celebration, that will feature a BBQ cook-off as well as a fireworks show.
Every year we add new things to our trails and our event docket and that probably makes you wonder, why? Well if you’ve been to our events you’ve probably heard that we are a foundation that helps families in North Carolina with life altering illnesses, and all of our ticket sales and admission costs go directly to helping those families. Ultimately at the end of every event plan we think about how many families these events will be able to help, and that’s why we have so many. Our goal at the end of the day is to help as many families as we can, and through the support of our community we have been able to spread from a county wide foundation to a state wide foundation in less than ten years. We would not be able to add as much as we do to our events or help the families that we do if it was not for the support of you, our community.
Once again we would like to say that we sincerely appreciate the Sponsors, Donors, and Volunteers that have made all of our events and family assistance possible. Thank you so much for helping us reach our goals for last year and for helping us shoot for the ones we have set for this year.
