
I've been kind of absent from the blogosphere this week. With a couple of important events to attend, I found myself swamped catching up on the days in between. Fortunately, I've been trying to take pictures so I can share some ideas with you.
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Mrs. Hatch |
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hospitality suite |
My employer,
Heritage Schools, Inc., received a grant from the Utah Families Foundation. The money for this grant comes primarily from a golf tournament hosted by
Senator Orrin Hatch. One of the requirements of receiving a grant is to provide volunteers to help with the event. I really enjoy attending events so I can see what they do, how they decorate, etc., so I was pretty happy that my boss asked me to attend. Although I was supposed to be working in the Hospitality Suite, I ended up being asked to help with setting up for the ladies' luncheon hosted by Mrs. Hatch and the awards dinner. Perfect!! By the way, my apron for working the Hospitality Suite matched the polka dot placemat you see in the photo.
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awards dinner |
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gifts |
The theme centered around the 20th anniversary of the foundation and the event. By looking at the photos, you will see the colors black, white, and bright green as the color scheme. Wooden word cutouts (hope, love, believe), painted black, were used on previous nights of the event as well as in the hospitality suite. I wish I had a picture of what they had for centerpieces at the previous night's dinner. They filled round fish bowls with green apples and put the smaller word cutouts in front of them.
For the awards dinner, the golf theme was obvious. Tall vases filled with black paper shred had large golf balls sitting on top. The glittery green rings looked very pretty once they were on the tables despite looking very simple when we first pulled them out of the bags. I got to stick green artificial flowers in black foam blocks and got to be quite a pro at shaping them. Add some candles and the necessary literature, plus some gift boxes tied in coordinating ribbon (and a thank you sticker), and everything looked amazing.
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Senator Hatch's table |
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tall vase |
It was kind of refreshing to see that I wasn't the only one who had to deal with problems at an event. There were enough decorations for all the other tables, but not enough to do the same thing for the Senator's much larger table at the front. A very resourceful volunteer took some of the fish bowls from the previous night, stuffed them with black paper shred, and added the green artificial flowers for two of them and a golf ball for the third. It looked very impressive and was probably better for conversation at that table. My absolute favorite decoration was the very tall floor vase filled with artificial flowers and branches and with golf balls instead of water. You might think it's weird that I take pictures of all this stuff, but I found out that other event organizers do it, too. Tricks of the trade, I guess.
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Governor Olene Walker |
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Michael Bolton |
Senator Hatch often brings in his friends from the political and entertainment worlds. Utah's former governor (the first woman),
Olene Walker, was there.
Michael Bolton was the entertainer for the awards dinner.
Jason Hewlett and
Thurl Bailey have also performed in the other years I have attended. The Utah Families Foundation awarded grants to 71 Utah charities this year and we were pleased to be one of them.