Up 'til Dawn is hosting a community awareness and food collection campaign on October 31st, 2008 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.

We're fully aware that this is the same night as the traditional East Carolina University Halloween festivities. However, we'll be back in plenty of time for everyone to still participate in the crazy, fun, Halloween events around campus.

The plan is to meet student volunteers at the entrance of the East Carolina University West End Dining Hall at 6:00pm. We'll break up into groups and depart immediately to assigned neighborhoods around Greenville. We'll take part in the traditional Trick-or-Treating like when we were kids - Only instead of asking for candy, we'll be asking for non-perishable food items.

All of the food collected will be stored until the Up 'til Dawn Executive Board makes their trip to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in mid November. The group will transport the food to Memphis, TN when they make the trip to the hospital and they'll donate it to the Ronald McDonald House.

Congratulations to our 2008 Letter Sending Campaign iPod Touch Drawing winner! Sarah Jadelis, of team ECU PRSSA, wrote fifty letters in less than two hours. Her name was drawn tonight at our weekly Executive Board Meeting .

Pictured here is Sarah Jadelis being presented her iPod Touch by Kaela Rae Jennings, Up 'til Dawn Executive Board Director.

Click here to view a video of the drawing of Sarah's name

Sarah was one of sixty-one letter senders who completed fifty or more letters; including several Executive Board Members. We had about one hundred and fifty people attend the Letter Sending Campaign, so about half reached the goal set for being entered in the iPod drawing.

There were plenty of people who barely missed fifty letters and there were a number of people who did more than fifty. Regardless if you were able to send five or a hundred, we greatly appreciate your help!

We would like to take this opportunity to mention a few people who went well above and beyond our goal fifty letters:

• Robert Vance - 125 letters
• Erika Welch - 116 letters
• Caitlin Collins - 100 letters
• Kendra Bumgarner - 90 letters
• Sharkita Bullock - 77 letters
• Kaela Jennings - 76 letters
• Jennifer Sheppard - 70 letters
• Noel Raines - 64 letters

It's not too late to sign up for our Letter Sending Campaign!

If you haven't signed up yet, you only missed our "early registration" - You can STILL SIGN UP!

Simply by attending this event, you can win prizes while you help kids with cancer! East Caroling University Up 'til Dawn is hosting two raffle drawings the night of their 2008 Letter Sending Campaign. We will be handing out one iPod Touch and other various prizes throughout the night.

iPod Touch Giveaway

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has given East Carolina University Up 'til Dawn one iPod Touch to give away at the Letter Sending Campaign. There are two ways you can be entered into the drawing to win:

• When you turn in fifty addressed letters at our Letter Sending Campaign you will be entered once in the drawing to win the iPod Touch [1].
• If you refer ten friends to our website and they sign up to attend the Letter Sending Campaign, you will be entered once in the drawing to win the iPod Touch [2].

Raffle Drawings

Throughout the night of the Letter Sending Campaign, Up 'til Dawn will be drawing names from a second raffle drawing. The second drawing will include prizes donated by local Greenville vendors and gift certificates from local Greenville restaurants. There are several ways you can be entered into this drawing:

• Simply by attending the Letter Sending Campaign you will be entered into this drawing once.
• If you registered for the Letter Sending Campaign by October 1st, 2008 at 11:59pm, you will be entered into the drawing an additional time.
• If you volunteered to work and attended our Canning Project on September 27th, 2008 you will be entered into the drawing an additional time.
• If you volunteer to work and attended our Letter Sending Campaign on October 21st, 2008 you will be entered into the drawing an additional time.

As you might already be aware, East Carolina University Up 'til Dawn tried a new approach this year to finding an artist to help design their t-shirt for the school year. The group promoted their First Annual T-Shirt Design Contest throughout the art buildings on campus, asking art students for their help. Unfortunately, this year, the campaign was a flop. Up 'til Dawn didn't receive any submissions and when asked, students who were interested said they just didn't have enough time in the busy course schedules. But there's always a silver lining.

ECU Up 'til Dawn had already been partnered up with Chili's Grill and Bar in Greenville for their annual Childhood Cancer Awareness Month fundraising efforts. Each year Chili's does their Create a Pepper Campaign and hosts The Big Day at Chili's. All through the month of September, Chili's patrons can create a pepper to be hung up in the Chili's restaurant. The Big Day at Chili's was September 29th this year, and the entire day all sales profits from all Chili's nationwide were donated to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

To make a long story short, while we were meeting with the manager of our local Chili's to discuss our projects, while we were at dinner each of the numerous times we ate at Chili's in the past few weeks, and the night of The Chili's Big Day we kept noticing these really cool Create a Pepper t-shirts. One of the servers finally told us that one of their fellow servers had done a number of the shirts for them.

We finally met Carla Sue Hanson, the amazing artist who had created all the cool shirts that the Chili's servers were wearing. One of our Associate Executive Board members, Robert Vance, approached her to ask if she'd have any available time to work with Up 'til Dawn. Carla was more than ecstatic that people were impressed with her work and wanted her help for another project. Less than twenty-four hours later Carla submitted a line art drawing of the artwork that is to be printed on Up 'til Dawn's 2008-2009 t-shirt.

The shirt will be given to 300+ students on East Carolina University's campus as a part of their involvement in the 2008 Letter Sending Campaign on October 21st, 2008. The shirt will also be made available on the ECU Up 'til Dawn website for a $20 donation. This dollar amount includes the shirt being mailed to you via USPS. All proceeds directly benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.