Very disappointed and really bummed

So Chandra and I have been working hard (her even harder ) for about a month now on planning this huge event. We had so many people tell us that this Bunco Fundraiser would bring in so much money and it was such an awesome fundraiser. We had so much interest thrown at us with so many people wanting to participate. So we started our planning. Originally we tried to get to use a room at my church. Unfortunately they were booked and directed us to other churches. But by the time they had replied to me, time was being cut short and we needed to get the ball moving and get the word out. So we attempted to do it at my place. Well, we knew we had room for 6 tables - possibly 7. So a max amount of 28 people. We knew Bunco is a well loved game and many people we knew played it. And we figured we would have more interest then 28 people. So . . .we added a second time slot. Our original buy in was $20 with all profits going directly to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Awesome prizes were to be won. Starbucks, lia sophia jewelry, pizza hut, TGIFridays, and much more. How could we go wrong right?

Wrong. We put the word out. We threw out between 200-300 flyers. We posted on our playgroup thinking we had support from them. We put the word out on Myspace. We put the word out on Criagslist. And so many other groups. We had interest. But as the time grew near, interest declined. We lowered our buy-in to $10. We now put our profit from $280 each (with a full house) for each time slot, down to $140 each. Ok, this sucked but we knew we would at least gain something to help us out. More then we had. How could we go wrong? This information was now in the hands of close to 500 people or so.

Wrong. Today we started getting everything ready. 3pm grew near. Nobody. At 3:15 our first person showed. Ok, we have hope. At 3:20 our second person showed. Ok, a bit more hopeful. At 3:30 our 3rd AND FINAL person showed. Yep. 3 people plus Chandra and I. Not enough to play. We had 12 definite rsvp's. Definites! I guess definite is never definite.

We had one girl give us $20 as she walked out and another gave us $10. The other was going to give us money too but we told her to just hold on to it (she's part of our playgroup - the one person who came). One of our rsvp-ers got in a car accident so she is definitly excused of course.

So today - a month in the planning, tons of computer ink used, gas used (high in these days thank you), $50 plus in food, and now I'm sitting here with an earned $15.

So how do people do it? How do you seriously get a successful fundraiser when everyone you thought supported you . . ignores you? How do those you thought were close to you and would help you out with anything, just ignore you? Frustrating????? To say the least.