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What A Success!!

6/29/2010

I am finally getting on here. What an exhausting, but wonderful weekend! The rain held off and it didn't get too hot! I have an announcement to make before getting into the weekend's festivities. We didn't want to take away from the point of the fundraiser this weekend so we didn't sell tickets to the Logger's Game at the fundraiser. Today we officially starting to sell the tickets! Here is the information you need and I will follow that with information I need from you if you are interested in attending. The game is on July 29th and tickets for the game are once again $5.00. We also have a coach bus taking us to the game, however, it only fits 60 people compared to a little over 70 people on the bus last year. The cost, since it is a coach with air and a bathroom will be $10.00 each this time. We will also be selling tie-dye red TEAM VOGEL shirts if you wish to purchase them for $10.00. Otherwise feel free to wear the TEAM VOGEL shirts from last year or the new ones from this year. I am asking that if you want to go to the game, ride the bus, and or just want a shirt that you email me ASAP at [email protected]. We will stop taking orders on July 16th so we can get the shirts ordered and so Julie can get us the tickets. PLease email the account I have put above and please title it "Loggers Game" and let me know what you want to do with the 4 options: how many tickets, seats on the bus, and shirts and shirt size.

As for the fundraiser, what a great day!! The rain held off and we didn't get "streamed out" like we did at my first benefit. The traffic seemed to flow in and out of the tent all day. The softball tournament and homerun derby were both excellent! Lee Rain won the homerun derby and Audio, part of the split up Eagles team, won the tournament. I only got to watch the final 3 games, but they were all good!! The race went really well, especially considering this was the first year, thank you to everyone that participated in the race and the volunteers that helped the race run smooth. Thank you also to to the Winona High Football team for their help with the race. Congrats are also in line for the Cancer Kicker's who won the kickball tournament!

The Penny Raffle went well as we sold ALL the tickets, amazing, that was 1500 tickets between the 3 Raffles. Thank you to everyone that donated the prizes for that. Keta Lindstom for the "Vegas" trip, The Kosidowski's for the fishing trip, and the Twins, Andy Gierok, and Dave St. Peter, and Rachel for the Twins package. Thank you to everyone that purchased raffle tickets for this as well! The golf chipping contest went really well with the winning of the drawing be Scott Hoag. The food seemed to be a hit throughout the day as the pulled pork, hot dogs, and brats were flying out all day. We had a TON of baked goods and they all went good as well.

The silent auction was a huge hit as usual! Many of the Twins autographed items went for a high amount of money. The framed pictured from Opening Day that my friend, MIke, donated generated a lot of money. Also the Harley jackets from Susie made their way up as the day went on. Thank you to everyone that donated something to the auction. Like I said, that part of the fundraiser was a great success and brought in a lot of money for the families.

Thank ALL of you for helping out with this fundraiser. Whether you helped serve food, participated in the run/walk or one of the tournaments, donated money, baked goods, silent auction items, etc!. To everyone that was there in attendance, thank you for being there in support of these wonderful families! There will be more thank yous to come throughout the week. Rachel and i are heading out here for a few days to relax. We are going to wait a little bit to announce what we had come in for money as money keeps trickling in through donations on the teamvogelvscancer.com website and in the mail.

A huge thank you has to go out to Randy Knecht who provided the music throughout the day and got a lot of people up there to sing. Last, but certainly not least has to be the great team that we put together for our board. Brian Bergler, Mike and Julie Biggerstaff, Mom and Dad Vogel, Mom and Dad Salisbury, Amanda Weifenbach, and Rachel and I worked very well as a team together and made this a great day without many hitches at all! I am excited to work with this group again next year and keep the momentum of this event going. Thanks is also in order for Brad and Dale Bartelson for the great work they did with the softball tournament and homerun derby! The website wouldn't have been as great as it was without the time and effort put in by Sarah Biggerstaff and AJ Scherbring. Thanks so much. I can't wait to do this all over again next summer.....but I am excited to take a break for now and enjoy what we accomplished over the weekend. Take care and I shall talk to you soon!!

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TOMORROW is the day!!

6/25/2010

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Well, the big day is almost here! The funny thing is that I thought as it got closer I was going to have a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep. I still have my moments when I am laying in bed wondering how it is going to go or what I am going to stay in my speech. Whatever I say I am hoping to keep it short and sweet as tomorrow is about the 6 families and cancer research and how we are going to do what we can do to beat this beast. I knew when we started all of this that it would take a lot of work and a lot of time. For Rachel and I it has been easier as we can just work on a lot of this stuff, whereas, a lot of people on the board have to try to find time at night or at times throughout the day. So to everyone on the board, thanks again SO much for your hard work and for making time in your lives for this fundraiser!

It is official that I will be bald for the fundraiser, Dave hit his $3000 goal and last night we hit the $5000 goal for me to shave my head. I always knew i was possible, but boy did the money start come flying in. We had a group of people I believe have a bake sale where they raised over $400 to push us over the $5000 and then more just kept coming after that. How awesome is that to start out with that much, just in donations before the event even starts!! Last night we went to my parents and had some grilled burgers with my parents, Katie's family and Cassie, Patty, and Ryan. Ryan had unfortunately come from the Brewers beat down of the Twins. I haven't been watching much for games lately because i have been doing a lot of stuff for the fundraiser. Probably a good thing!

As far as tomorrow goes, there will be poster boards of the families selected so you can learn a little more about them. I have personally only met 4 of the 6 families, the other 2 families Rachel has been in contact with. They are wonderful people and I am glad that we are going to be able to help them out!

So, Saturday's events... we will start with registration handouts from 6:30-7:30. We will be cutting off at 7:30 sharp though and if you aren't registered by then you most likely won't be in the "official" system. I think I heard that they ordered about 50 more shirts, but that might have been a dream. I don't think there will be enough for everyone even if there were 50 added anyway. Kirsten will grab the mic and sing at 7:45 SHARP, followed shortly by Tom Slaggie firing off the gun. When the races are done people will spread out as softball and kickball tournaments will be starting at 9:00. The silent auction and penny raffle will also be starting right after the race. I cannot explain how many nice things there are in the silent auction, not to mention the 3 great prizes for the penny raffle! A lot of Twins and Vikings stuff, Margaritta baskets, massage baskets, kids baskets, a couple trees, gift certificates, tool baskets, etc. You will be amazed at the stuff people have donated!

The bake sale will be going on as soon as the races end as well, so after you run, re-fill so you are ready for the rest of the day! It is going to be a warm one. It looks like we will have the pulled pork meals as well as the hotdog/brat booth going as well right away. There will also be the golf chipping going on throughout the day that will feature a great prize at the end! Obviously at the end of the day we will also be having the Homerun derby which should be very enjoyable to watch. This is sponsored by Market Street which will have the award ceremony there at 9:30, must be there to claim prizes. The softball tournament will conclude on Sunday morning and afternoon, so I encourage people to still come to that and enjoy some great softball and some brat and dogs. It is going to be GREAT DAY! Thank you to everyone for being a part of it, thanks for the donations, thanks for being such a great community coming together to help those in need!! You are all truly wonderful people!! See you tomorrow!!

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Final Days For Race Registration

6/21/2010

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I have something VERY important to pass along here and that is to PLEASE register for the 5K/1mile walk and run by this Tuesday. On Tuesday at midnight we will be taking the Race information off the site and you will no longer to register for the race online, it will have to be the morning of the race. We will be starting the packets starting on Wednesday and filling them until Friday night. Another thing I REALLY want to stress here in the next day and a half is to make sure you are REGISTERING for the race before you pay for it with Pay Pal. I had about 6 emails today for the race and 5 were just PayPal, there was NO registration with them. We can only partially sign you up for the race without all the information, so PLEASE fill out the Race Registration...THEN fill in your PayPAL. This will all have to be fixed on race day.

We broke the $4000 barrier for donations, still a little under a grand from getting me to shave my head, I believe it is at like $4056. I think that is all I have for today, you can still buy your polled pork meal online, both tournaments are full. There will be plenty of things going on through out the day including a chipping contest, a silent auction with, WOW, so many great things on it, a penny raffle, a bat raffle, hot dog and brat booth, and much more. Great music provided by Randy Knecht. There will also be a great baked good sale with baked goods donated by many wonderful people in my family, friends, friends of friends, strangers, just everyone. So many people wanting to help this great cause!!

I would like to close today by thanking everybody for the help. Like I said, this was only my idea, it takes a whole team to make something like this come together. It all started with our board and throwing different ideas around to spreading word to what we needed for help, silent auctions, kickball and softball teams, meal, penny raffle, efc. I am planning on Saturday being a beautiful day with this great community coming together for a great cause!! Take care and I will talk to you soon. Remember, Tuesday at midnight will be the deadline for online race registration. Thanks again everyone!! I can't wait til Saturday!!!

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We've Come A Long Way!

6/19/2010

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When it rains, it pours, right? Well, last night I am laying in bed watching the news and switching between that and the basketball game. I hear on the news that Winona has been hit hard with rain, so the next time I get up to go to the bathroom I said to myself, "I should check the basement to make sure there isn't any water coming in. Well, I didn't make it to the basement, I am walking through the kitchen and the floor is wet and I am feeling drops on my head. Sure enough, we had water coming through our kitchen ceiling. We went upstairs to the apartment in hopes that he had left a window open and that is where there water was coming from. Nope. Rachel's mom stuck her head up in the attic and could tell the water was coming in through the roof. There is someone here right now and if I understood Rachel correctly, we have some holes by our chimney. If it's not one thing it is the other. We have been through so much though that we were basically numb to this last night. We had planned on putting a new roof on soon anyway, we will see what the next step is.

Anyway, I would like to ask that you all still keep Tiffany's mom in your prayers and also, today is her birthday! Tiffany isn't on CaringBridge anymore but she does have a blog that she writes on it is http://smokinhotcancer.com. I talked to her last night and she is planning on getting a CaringBridge site set up for her mom so she can keep people updated. I am suppose to meet up with Tiff at some point this weekend to get some silent auction stuff and I am sure we will talk about some of this stuff as well.

Yesterday we watched the Twins, Liriano looked ok, just had the bad inning. I just can't wait until we get our full lineup back. Although Tolbert and Punto have really stepped up lately, it will be nice to get back to the starting 9 the way it should be. I really don't know what they should do about Harris, now it is all mental. However, I don't think him having a good game will get him out of this slump, I think he needs some time where he is getting at-bats everyday and building his confidence up. On the other side of things, I have been VERY impressed with Delmon Young this year. If he can keep this going this year and for years to come, I can say the Twins will be a great shape. He was always talked about as a guy with a lot of potential but never lived up to the hype. This summer it looks like he dedicated himself to being more patient and getting in better shape. I am still very confident that they will win the division, but I tell ya, they just can't shake those dang Tigers.

I am sure that if you read the guestbook you saw that Patrick Klinger from the Twins wrote in there. Rachel had talked to him as she had gotten in touch with him through her aunt. Due to how I was feeling after the whole issue with my liver, Rachel and a lot of people thought I should skip the Autograph Party and they had hoped that Patrick would be able to "hook me up" with some Twins stuff. The whole point of my trip to the Autograph Party was to get some stuff signed for the fundraiser. Well, as I talked to Rachel and I think she saw how much it would mean to me go, she finally said I could go. As my grandpa would say right now, "Who wears the pants in your family?" Well, she is not only my wonderful wife, but she also looks out for what is best for me. Anyway, we went and I got all the autographs I needed and as we are walking out of the stadium we hear, "joe?" It was Patrick. Keep in mind ew had never met him before, so I am guessing he recognized me from pictures, probably from this site. He stopped to talk for a couple minutes and it was great to meet him! Very good guy!! Well, I am not sure if it was the next game or a couple games later, he was in the booth with Dick and Bert talking about the wall that you can put your name on. I thought this was pretty cool as we had just met him. I also got an email after he wrote on my site from my friend Missy (Klinger) Loken that Patrick is her cousin (I think I have that right). It is a small world.

Did everyone hear Bert give me a shout out during Friday's game? We have come a long way this past year. Last year we were at the game as a group all wearing our Team Vogel shirts and as the camera zoomed in, Dick says, "Team Vogel? Whatever that is." Then Spring Training comes around and Dick takes us to the dugout and introduces us to Mauer, Morneau and Kubel. My friend Rachel got us in touch with Dave St. Peter who gave Rachel and I tickets for a game earlier this year. Then we meet Patrick and then Bert give me a shout out. They must know who their number one fan is!!

This is sure a long one huh? Yesterday I was in a hurry because I was falling asleep while I was writing due to my meds. The fundraiser is really coming together and basically all I have to do is finish collecting some of the silent auction items and contact my bakers. Bakers, look forward to getting an email this weekend! Shirt orders continue to pour in, looks like people really like the print on them! They are still $10.00 and if you want to order one/some email me at [email protected]. Like I said, they are selling out quick and we are not putting in another order for the fundraiser shirts. You can also still get them through registering for the race. I would say registering in the next couple days will guarantee you a shirt, but I would say by middle of next week, the shirts will be gone. Other then that, kickball teams I will be sending out your brackets and the rules sometime today or tomorrow. You can still get your pulled pork dinner tickets at Midtown Foods, HyVee and 5th Street Liquor as well as ordering them off the Team Vogel website or you can just email me at [email protected] to order them. We were at Brian's house last night and WOW, there are SO many nice items for the silent auction. You will be very impressed and be able to get a lot of cool things while helping others at the same time!! Well, i have to go to meet with Bea to get race registrations printed so they can enter them into the program. The more we get in their system in this next week, the less stress for them on the day of the fundraiser. Well, I am off, have a great weekend. Go Twins!!

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LAST DAY FOR RACE REGISTRATIONS

6/11/2010

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Just a reminder that there is only 1 more day to register for the 5K/ 1 mile walk/run at the $15/$20 registration and shirt guarantee. Between June 13th and June 16th you can still register for the race online, but it will be $20 and $25 instead of where it is at now. You can still sign up for the shirts when you register, but we will not be able to guarantee the shirts after the June 12 deadline. If you want to order just a shirt, I will need those orders by the 12th of June as well as we will be turning in our order. We will continue to take donations, we are really close to the $3000 we need for Dave to shave his head and a little over $2000 away from me shaving mine! You can donate on the teamvogelvscancer website or send a check to Team Vogel to 450 East 9th Street Apt 3, Winona, MN 55987.

We are very excited for the 26! It will be nice to help out these wonderful families, their pictures are on the website! We don't have their stories posted because we are leaving that up to them whether they want to share their stories. We are having them make posters with whatever they want on there. It could be anything from a bunch of pictures to just their name to their story. I will also leave the mic open all day if any of them want to talk about their story. I hope they can feel the love and support of this great community and feel the strength of TEAM VOGEL!! Take care and have a great day!!

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Friday June 11th: Hot Dog/Brat Sale- Midtown Foods Downtown

6/8/2010

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Hello everyone! Our day today was pretty busy. I drove Rachel around as she hung fliers at many of the downtown businesses. Tomorrow we are on the radio at 7:05, 8:05, and 11:05. Between the 8:00 and 11:00 interviews, we plan on hitting up Kwik Trips, Midtown and HyVee with fliers and containers for donations. Other then these aches in my knees and shoulders, I have been feeling well.

Just a reminder that on Friday at Midtown Foods Downtown we are having a hot dog/brat sale. Hot dog, Lay's chips, and a pop for $1.50 or brat, Lay's chips, pop for $2.50. It is suppose to be a beautiful day! So stop in and get all your graduation needs at Midtown and get a dog or brat for the road!! We will also be selling tickets for the pulled pork meal and have race registrations on hand.

Another reminder that the deadline for race pre- registration is the 12th of June. After that, the registrations each go up $5.00 and you aren't guaranteed a shirt. Also, if you want just a shirt, that order needs to be in to [email protected] by the 12th as well. Also, if you plan on having the pulled pork meal that day PLEASE buy your tickets. We will have some extra meals on hand, but without a ticket for the meal there are no guarantees that you will get a meal. We will probably stop selling tickets for this June 19th. We will have hot dogs and brat on hand that day too, but that will also be "as it lasts".

The softball tournament is full and they will be having a homerun derby at 6:30 Saturday night. We will also be raffling off 2 Mikon Bats and some other things at the softball fields thanks to Market Street Tap and Gabby's. Many people have been asking about the silent auction and what items we have, her are a few things:

Men's and Women's Leather Harley Jackets
Wine Baskets
Vikings Jerseys
Twins Jerseys
Bath/Lotion Baskets
Massage Baskets
Margarita Basket
Twins Tickets
Timberwolves Tickets
Autographed Twins and Vikings items
LaCrosee Loggers, Rochester Honkers, and St. Paul Saints Tickets

There will be many more things, I just can't think of them right now. Thank you to everyone that has donated and to all the businesses that have donated certificates, shirts, etc!!! We are VERY excited to help out these families as well as cancer research! This will take some of the stress out of many lives! You can donate all the way through the fundraiser. Right now we are at about $2600, so Dave is going to be shaving for sure, and it will be close for me. You can donate on the teamvogelvscancer website, in the canisters throughout town, or mail them to us at Team Vogel 450 East 9th Street Apt. 3 WInona, MN 55987.

Again, thank you to everyone that is going to be part of this day! While we are organizing this, it is all of you that are making this possible!! Take care and have a great day!!

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Meet The Families

6/1/2010

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I have good news, we went over the $1000 mark in donations for the fundraiser, so thanks to everyone who has donated!! I have decided to donate $10 for every pound I lose between now and the fundraiser. That is 4 weeks, so hopefully I can stick to eating really good every day and getting more walks in! Obviously I will be splurging a bit on Wednesday at Chula! It will be nice to see everyone there enjoying their lunch specials, their regular Wednesday special, ½ price appetizers with purchase of an entrée and their 3-6 Happy Hour which includes $3 off Mega Margaritas and $1 off Imports. We will have crews there selling Pulled Pork tickets and also Race Registrations. The race registrations are coming in pretty steady lately, so thank you everyone for that!

The softball and kickball tournaments are filling up fast. I think there are one or two spots left in men’s softball and 2 or 3 in kickball. So, if you want to play in either, get your registration in or contact Dale for softball and me for kickball. We are still looking for items for the silent auction if anyone is interested in putting together a basket or something. I am also still looking for bakers, we can always use more baked goods. All I ask is that they aren’t perishable and they can’t contain nuts due to allergies. Bars, cookies, pies, etc. are all welcome! As always you can always donate to the fundraiser at the bottom of the website page. The families have been announced, and you can view them on the "Meet The Families" page on the website.The new flyers that we will be hanging at businesses will have the pictures of the families on them. There will also be containers at some businesses in town to donate that way too if you want. You can also buy your tickets for the Pulled Pork meal at Midtown Foods, HyVee and 5th Street Liquor.

I would like to end my entry today by thanking Winona Agency in their support of TEAM VOGEL vs Cancer! A couple weeks ago they had a “wear your jeans to work”day. Employees got to wear jeans that day for $5.00 I believe. They also had some items that I think you could win by playing Blinko. They also sold banana splits that day as well! This raised $305 and then Winona Agency matched $100 of that! So the day raised $405!! It was Mary Jo’s way to pay it forward by helping us pay it forward!! We just met her about a month ago at a cancer survivor’s get-together. After Rachel spoke, I think she was so touched by what we were doing that she wanted to find a way to help. She did a great job and it sounds like this was one of the most successful “wear your jeans to work” days that they have had!! So thanks again Mary Jo and everyone that participated that day!! That is all I have today, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend!!

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What A Success!!

TOMORROW is the day!!

Final Days For Race Registration

We've Come A Long Way!

LAST DAY FOR RACE REGISTRATIONS

Friday June 11th: Hot Dog/Brat Sale- Midtown Foods Downtown

Meet The Families

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