After a few weeks, pledges seem to have slowed down.  I was no longer receiving daily pledge forms, rather it was one every few days.  We were somewhere around $400 which was good but I wasn't going to let this goal of $1000 come up that short.  Something had to be done to get things going again. 

I reveiwed all of the forms that we had received so far and realized that there were still about 100 member families that hadn't pledged yet.  It was time to get personal.

I made a plan and decided to make phone calls every night.  My committee volunteered to help with this, however, I felt that it would be more effective if I talked to people.  Again, I tried to keep it a very soft sell.  I know what it's like to get solicitation phone calls and I didn't want anyone getting upset over this.  I would ask people if they had heard about what I was planning to do and if they'd like to sponsor me.  Some did, some didn't.  This was all fine with me and the pledges started coming in again.

Personally, it didn't really matter to me if someone pledged $10 per mile or $1 per mile.  The fact that I was getting support from my community and people were willing to part with their cash for this endeavor was enough.  It turned out that we raised almost $200 per mile just from people that pledged the small amount of $2 or less per mile.  Without them, we would not have gotten to the point we did.

My relatives really stepped up.  I received a $500 check from a cousin and my uncle made an amazing pledge for our cause, neither of which belong to our Synagogue.  My uncle called me to congratulate me on my endeavor.  He then told me that he would sponsor me $10 per mile, which I though was great.  But then, he told me about the catch.  If I finished the race, he would cancel the $10 per mile and pledge $50 per mile!  WOW!!!  Talk about incentive to get to the finish line.

There was also an interesting pledge from one of our more entertaining members (he has a sense of humor like me).  He told me that he wanted to do something different as well as help to give me motivation.  This was his pledge:

2^(M-11)/100

M are the miles that I complete in the race.  He told me that originally he wanted to sponsor me for a penny the first mile and double it for every mile I completed.  However, he did the math and that would come to over $335,000.  It was fine with me.... but he had an issue with it.  So the formula pays me a penny for mile 11 and double each mile after that.  This came to over $300 if I finished.

Fundraising was back on track!

Stay tuned for What Was I Thinking (Part Ten)

What Was I Thinking (Part one): In the Beginning 
What Was I Thinking (Part two): Goodbye Reality
What Was I Thinking (Part three): The Point of No Return
What Was I Thinking (Part four): Super Dave
What Was I Thinking (Part five): My Follow Through
What Was I Thinking (Part six): The Rise of Marathon Martin
What Was I Thinking (Part Seven): Doctor, Doctor.... Give Me The News
What Was I Thinking (Part Eight): Doctor, Doctor....Train, Train, Train