And, it’s not too late to register for the Punch-a-thon and get your t-shirt for free!

Ariel Poster won our first annual Punch-a-thon t-shirt contest with her very cool design you can see below.

The 2012 Punch-a-thon T-shirt design by Ariel Poster

Ariel works in film and television and she is currently working in the art department of the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.” She believes design is a powerful tool for creating positive social change and she is thrilled to have this opportunity to illustrate CAE’s mission of building strength to end violence.

“I think you run a very important organization and I’m happy I had the opportunity to enter this competition,” Ariel told CAE. “I look forward to participating in the Punch-a-thon! I feel lucky to live in a community where there are organizations like CAE.”

We’re psyched about the new t-shirt design and as an added bonus we’ve extended the deadline to get your Punch-a-thon t-shirt free if you register by Monday May 21 at 6 pm. Otherwise shirts are $15 for adults and $10 for youth, but supplies are limited.

Thanks to all for getting the word out about this contest and keep those pledges coming!

There are two big deadlines approaching.

This Monday, May 14th is the last day to:

• Register to punch. Give us your t-shirt size to secure one of this year’s original t-shirts, designed by a local artist.
• Vote for your favorite Punch-a-thon t-shirt design. Let us hear your voice!

As you reach out to family, friends, colleagues, and loved ones to ask for donations, you can take some tips from a great letter Mieke sent out this week:

Keep up the great work everyone! We look forward to seeing you on the 3rd!

Have you registered yet? Now is the time! After registering, begin reaching out to your network to sponsor you. To make it easier to get that message out, here is a sample letter you can use as a starting point.

It can sometimes feel awkward to ask people for money. It’s important to remember that you are giving people in your circle the opportunity to support something very important, that you sincerely believe in. Supporting CAE is something that they and you can be proud of. The following is some sample language to help you get started:

Dear _________

I’m writing to ask you to sponsor me as I raise funds (and take on the challenge of  completing 1,000 air-punches!) for an organization and issue I care a great deal about: The Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE) and ending violence.

About CAE:

For thirty-seven years, CAE has been teaching women, children, teens, and LGBT individuals verbal and physical strategies to protect themselves and break cycles of violence in their lives and communities. CAE has a bedrock commitment to serving low-income families and offers violence-prevention courses on a sliding fee scale and free.

Help me reach my goal of raising $X  in The Center for Anti-Violence Education’s 7^th Annual Punch-a-thon to support:

• Free programs for teen women and LGBTQ homeless youth, which include how to prevent and respond to bullying; recognizing healthy/unhealthy relationships; and dealing with street harassment.
• Free violence prevention and self-defense course for adult survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

PUT YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT HERE – Let people know why CAE is important to you, ie,

• So many of us have experienced bullying or know what it’s like to be picked on as a child. For me personally, it’s important to support CAE because it’s working to end violence in all its forms …
• I took a self-defense class here xxx years ago…It helped me to feel safer and stronger…
• I started my martial arts training at CAE xxxx years ago. Martial arts changed the way I feel, physically and emotionally. It is an important aspect of my life as well as my work…

Please join me in celebrating and supporting this organization. No contribution is too small. To donate, visit my web page: PUT THE LINK TO YOUR PUNCHER PAGE HERE or you can mail a check to: The Center for Anti-Violence Education at 327 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Write on the check that you’re sponsoring me.

To join us on June 3th in Prospect Park, or for more information about this great event, visit: www.caepunchathon.org.

Thank you for supporting this incredible work!

YOUR NAME

And, thank you, Punchers, for helping to make this very important event happen!

The contest consists of two rounds. Here’s how it works:

1)   An independent jury will choose the designs that best fit the mission statement of CAE and the Punch-a-thon event. Those designs selected will be posted on our website for public voting by Monday, May 7^th.

2)   The contestant that receives the most votes by 8pm, May 14^th will win the prize of $300 and have their design printed on all t-shirts for CAE’s 2012 Punch-a-thon event. The winner will also be recognized on CAE’s Facebook page and website and be announced at the Punch-a-thon event.

Submission Details:

• E-mail your design to punchathon@caeny.org with the subject line “T-shirt Design” by 6pm on Thursday, May 3^rd.
• Submit your design in an EPS, TIFF or high quality JPEG file. The size should be no smaller than 10” x 8” at 300 DPI. The design can incorporate up to three colors. A light colored t-shirt will be picked to go with the winning design.
• The design should illustrate CAE’s mission of building strength to end violence. Consider designs that promote building community, empowering/strengthening participants, teaching anti-violence and working for social justice.
• Incorporate the text “CAE Punch-a-thon 2012″ into the design. You are also welcome to incorporate “Building Strength to End Violence” but it’s not required.

For more information check out our contest page.

We can’t wait to see what comes in. Please pass the word to your artist and creative friends!

After our kick-off announcement went out last week Councilmember Brad Lander (39^th District) contacted us to share that he plans to attend the event. And we’re just getting started!

We’re gearing up for our best year yet and we need you to make it happen!

Though it’s only April, now is the perfect time to start telling your personal network about this very important fundraiser for CAE.

What’s a great way to do that? Ask your family, friends and coworkers to join your team and start asking for pledges!

Consider:

• Starting early [now!] and getting a few people on your team who have a passion for fundraising – That way, it creates some competition to have everyone raise a lot of money. Send out weekly e-mail updates and list everyone’s fundraising total, from highest to lowest, and that really gets the competition going!

• Using Facebook or Twitter to recruit friends and family to your team – Using social networking sites are a great way to recruit team members, get donations, share advice, and promote your team fundraising events.
• Reminding folks it’s a great workout – Find friends who want to challenge themselves physically and help support an important cause at the same time.

Here are a few talking points for recruiting members to your team:

• I thought that you might be interested in joining a team that I am leading (Or “that I have joined”). It is sort of like a walk-a-thon, but a bit different. The event benefits The Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE). It is called a Punch-a-thon.

• CAE is a really great organization. They’ve been around for 38 years, and have been teaching women, children, teens, and LGBT individuals verbal and physical strategies to protect themselves and break cycles of violence in their lives and communities.

• So back to the Punch-a-thon…after we raise money on the day of, we’ll gather in Prospect Park for the Punch-a-thon and learn martial arts punching and basic self-defense techniques from CAE’s instructors. Then we challenge ourselves to complete 1,000 punches together. And each 100 punches is dedicated to a vision—like ending domestic violence or abuse of children.

• So, how do you feel about volunteering?

Remember, all punchers need to register online. For more information, instructions on how to use the registration site and tips on asking for fundraising pledges, download our Punch-a-thon Handbook.

All of us at The Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE) are thrilled to launch our 7th Annual Punch-a-thon. The big day is Sunday, June 3!

We’re gearing up this year for a great event — a new T-shirt contest, more raffles, more visitors, more FUN! And most of all, for building strength in ourselves and in our communities to prevent, counter and heal from violence.

Please join us in reaching our goals this year to:

• Raise $50,000 in pledges to support our programs to end violence and stand up for justice;
• Build community awareness of violence prevention;
• Complete 1,000 punches representing confidence and empowerment for all survivors of violence.

Together, we have transformed thousands of lives.  Join us by signing up to punch, or by making a pledge, and help us reach thousands more!

Stay tuned!

While everyone contributed to reach this amazing milestone, some people made tremendous efforts to get sponsored and raise funds.  We want to acknowledge and reward the following people’s contribution to getting us over our goal:

Jacqui Guichelaar is the winner of the “Highest Amount Raised” prize, with a whopping $5,405 raised!  Incredible!  Jacqui wins the roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the U.S.

“Youth Highest Amount Raised” winner is Aidan Joe Evans, who raised a remarkable $1,510!  Way to go Aidan!  Aidan wins the bicycle donated by Brooklyn Bikes.

The “Greatest Number of Sponsors” winners are (adult) Ruchi Mital with 31 pledges, and (youth) Lucy Brownstein with 19 pledges!  Amazing!  Lucy wins movie tickets and Ruchi wins a membership to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.

We are so proud of all of our fund raisers and thank them so much for their efforts.

How to check if your pledges are “complete” or “incomplete”

An “incomplete” pledge means that a pledge was entered into the website by someone, but the money has not yet been received.  To check if any of your pledges are incomplete, here’s what you need to do:

• Sign into your page on the site.
• Go to “My Account” and then “Pledge Control Panel.”
• Click the last button on the top, “Review Pledges.”
• Review the list of all of the people who donated.
• View the ”Order Status” column to see if any pledges are marked “incomplete”
• Follow up with the donor let them know know we have met our goal, are so appreciative of their support, and are now aiming to collect all our pledges by June 27th.

If a pledge status is wrong or you think there might have been a mistake, please email Maggie@caeny.org, or call 718-788-1775 to clarify.

Additional notes:

• If you are a team captain, you may have pledges listed separately under your team website and your personal website. Click on the “team website” button and then the “review pledges” button to see the pledges for your team.
• Paypal pledges will never be “incomplete” because the donor’s Paypal account is automatically charged when they donate. However, they can be marked as “user left site.” If a donor left the Paypal site and did not donate later, it would be great to follow up with them. Please contact Maggie for more information about “user left site” notifications.

As we wrap up our 2011 effort, we wanted to let you know that it’s not too late to help us meet our goal… this Wednesday, June 15th at 11:59PM, we’ll be closing our pledge drive for the 2011 Punch-a-thon and we’re counting on you to help us finish strong.  We’re now just a few thousand dollars short of our overall target… if every puncher was able to contribute a bit more, we’d be there!!

Round up those friends that said they’d pledge but haven’t gotten around to it… post a note to your Facebook wall driving people to your pledge site… or even ask Mom and Dad, one more time.  It’s for such an incredible cause and will have an immediate impact on our community.

Oh, and did we mention the prizes?  Some fabulous prizes for those who raise the most money, too!  Thank you again for your ongoing support of CAE… we couldn’t have done it without you!

Dear Friends,

This past weekend was CAE’s Punchathon–and in addition to being an inspiring and empowering event we managed to raise over $25,000 to support CAE’s free violence prevention programs for children, teens, women, LGBT individuals, and survivors of violence!

We are more than half way to reaching our goal and have extended the donation deadline to June 15^th! So, if you are able to contribute and missed the last deadline, this is your chance! Just visit: (your fundraising website) to make your pledge.

Any amount sincerely makes a difference and goes to an organization that is very important to me.

Thanks for your support!

It is also good to send personal emails to individual friends/co-workers/family members. Following is an example:

Hey there. You know the Punchathon I have been talking about non-stop? Wanna donate to it? If you can help it would be great. The donation page is: caepunchathon.org. Let me know if it’s doable. Thanks, and talk to you soon!

Children's Empowerment Project Quilt for a Better World