I just sent this out to as many industry people as I have in my address book, but if you work for a company or know somebody that can help out with this effort, please get in touch with me. As wakeboarders, let's do what we can to help!
The wakeboarding industry has always been there when we do our annual Toys for Tots auction (
http://www.wakeworld.com/contests/2004/toysfortots1.asp) during the Christmas season and we thank you all for that!! Now we turn on our TV's every day to see a national tragedy greater than any that most of us can remember. Hurricane Katrina has devastated the southern United States and WakeWorld is looking for a way to help. At the risk of going to the well too often, we ask for your help in this time of need for many helpless families in this completely devastated region.
WakeWorld will be running an online auction of donated items from companies like yours in order to generate money to help out Hurricane Katrina survivors. 100% Of the proceeds from these auctions will go to the American Red Cross (
http://www.redcross.org). We're asking you to put together of package of wake-related goods and make them available to the highest bidder in each auction.
During the month of August, WakeWorld had over 4 million pages viewed by over 228,000 unique visitors. It is our goal to leverage this incredible number of avid wakeboarders in order to generate as much money as possible for relief efforts. The auctions will start on Monday, September 12 and run for at least a week, depending on how much support we get from the wakeboard industry.
All donations and sponsors will be featured on WakeWorld throughout the auctions and for many months afterward as we run ads to bring attention to the generosity displayed by the sponsors. Press releases will go out to the major wakeboarding magazines featuring the names of all sponsors as well.
If your company is interested in making an auction item or a package of items available, please reply to
gobig@wakeworld.com with the details of what products are contained in the package, images of the products and your company logo. You will not need to ship anything out until the bidding is over and we provide you with the winner bidder's address. Especially valuable would be 2006 or autographed products or other items that may not be available to the general public at this time. Items like these often garner bids that exceed their MSRP.
Thank you for your consideration and please let me know if you have any questions.