take one down and pass it around...67 bottles of wine on the wall

I have 67 bottles of wine in my apartment right now. Actually, I have 67.5 but that .5 doesn't count toward the rest of them. That .5 is presently being enjoyed by me as I type this post!

Earlier this year I wrote out my goals. Following the Success Principles, I needed to come up with 90 goals. These were 90 things I wanted to do, be and have before I die. On that list, I wrote down that I wanted to give a million dollars away to charity. I didn't have any idea at the time how I was going to make that happen. I kept the goal in my focus though and on a Sunday in September, I woke up with an idea. I didn't need to do it on my own, I could raise the money for charity. And my first charity event would be a wine drive.

We had done a wine drive through my professional association about a year ago. The idea was that you donate a bottle of wine and some money. The money goes to charity and the wine gets raffled off. This seemed like a great idea to me and I set forth planning how to adapt it to my goals. I sent out my first email on September 23rd announcing my plan. My goal was to collect 50 bottles of wine and $500 for The Canadian Cancer Society.

I got an immediate response from about 25 people letting me know they'd like in and more replies came in over the next week and a half. I was worried at times that I wouldn't reach my goal of 50 and 500. There was no need to ever worry. I surpassed 50 at least a week ago and still have a few more bottles coming to me in the next couple of days.

A couple of friends of mine work together and decided to promote the event within their company as well. The deal we cut was that they would keep the wine they receive within their company to raffle off and give the money to me to add to my donation.

He forwarded me this email that went to his co-workers... (I took out the company name to protect any privacy)

Wine & Dime
In the Marketing & Creative Services Department of Company name we’re not only in the business of making great marketing campaigns but we also enjoy making dreams come true.
A close friend of ours has a dream of raising $1 Million dollars for charity before she dies. Although, she is fortunate to be very healthy and has many years ahead of her to achieve this goal, we thought we would do our part to help make this very selfless dream come true, because as Margaret Mead once said:
“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

So here I am, 3 days away from the draw with 67 bottles of wine and a heart so full it might burst!