Busted...

Hello all!  Sorry I have taken so long to write in here about the Euchre Tournament!  Well, you might have heard the news already, but The Venue apparently did not have the right type of license to hold a tournament like that, and we were "busted" by the State of Michigan Liquor Commission.  I say "busted" because we were not trying to go against any laws, so we were not actually "caught" or "busted".  About halfway through the tournament a man and woman came up and showed me their badges and told me that what I was doing was illegal - so we had to stop.  The really bad part that made me start crying, was they had to take all the money we had raised up to that point.  They ended up with somewhere between $350-$400!  I was pretty upset - this money was donated by good people to give to children with health needs, and it was taken away by the state.  I realize they are doing their jobs and rules are rules, but it still sucks.  The part that really confused me and also hurt my feelings, was that the detectives had seen our posters around town, with all my contact information on them, so they could have easily emailed me and told me that The Venue did not have the correct license.

The detectives were not allowed to take the checks that people had written to Of One Heart, so they were given back to me.  After they left, numerous people starting coming up to me and giving me donations.  One guy, who was just there for lunch and a beer, had bought a 50/50 raffle ticket earlier and won $62.  He came up and gave it all back!  What a nice guy!  Another 50/50 raffle winner gave his winnings back as well.  After all of the extra donations were given - we ended up with $614!!  I was floored!  That is more than I could have asked for, and even though we ran into some trouble, we are still able to help a lot of children out!  Thank you to everyone who participated!!! 

Before the detectives showed up we had lunch, we rounded up a total of 16 people to play - so there were 4 Euchre tables.  Everyone seemed to be having a blast!  I think there were some friendships made and we raised a lot of awareness for our organization!  (Maybe not the way we had planned but...)  I am definitely looking forward to the Run/Walkathon on April 23, if it goes as well as the first half of the Euchre Tournament, I will be very happy:)

I do want to add that The Venue was very sorry about what happened and unfortunately they did not know about the licenses they needed.  They said they were definitely going to look into getting the right type of licenses and their lesson was learned:)

Saturday morning I woke up at the awesome hour of 5:30am to get my long run in.  I ran 16 miles, it started out really bad, my legs felt like lead.  But after about 4 miles, I was in my groove and for once I felt like I could run farther when I was done.  That is a good thing, because this Saturday is 18 miles!  I also received another donation aside from the Euchre Tournament for $100, so all together, the total will go up by $714!  That is awesome!

If you would like to sign up for the Run/Walkathon, or if you have any questions - you can email me at ofoneheart@hotmail.com. Thanks for reading!