I love The Great Giveaway!! Every year, it never ceases to amaze me how many people come out for it – both volunteers from GENESIS, and people from the community. This year we were specifically praying that 600 people would come, and God totally blew us away when over 800 people showed up!!! About 15 minutes before we opened there were over 300 people waiting, and almost everything was gone within the first 45 minutes. It was NUTS! But SO FUN!
It took us a month to collect all of the items that were given away, a week to organize it all, and about 3 hours to put it all out on display.
People began lining up and waiting by about 7:30am (the giveaway began at 10am)
My friend Tracy did a fabulous job organizing the event!
My lovely friend Christie was passing out balloons (photo taken on instagram). I heart this picture of her :)
All the volunteers gathered to pray right before we opened the “doors”
The masses are getting excited!!
Check out this quick little video I made of the opening of the floodgates! It was NUTS!!!
This guy was the big winner of the day, and walked away with a FREE 60″ TV!! He was pretty pumped to say the least ;)
My brother, Michael, did an awesome job with the bullhorn, keeping everyone entertained and informed!
The kids probably had the most fun! I love these two, and their deep discussion about stuffed animals. It looks like intense negotiations, haha!
Games inside for the kiddos
And a bouncy house outside for the kids big and small ;)
Um, perhaps they were over-sugared… My nephew Tristan would beg to differ
Facepainting fun! My niece Reilly and her best buddy Maddie got matching face parrots
Oh Dylan, you make an adorable basketball!
My nephew Caeden – almost as excited about the hot dog as he is about that container full of candy!
We grilled and gave away almost 1,000 hot dogs!!
I have no clue how much popcorn and cotton candy we made, but Bettina was COVERED in it!
Seriously, there were SO many PEOPLE there!!!! But within an hour almost all of this was gone, and it was just people eating hot dogs and playing games.
SUCH a fun day!!! I can’t wait for next year!!!!
to view more of my favorites from The Great Giveaway, check out the album on Facebook!