As I’m writing this article this evening, my local clown alley is preparing to hold their annual awards banquet tomorrow to celebrate our achievements for the last year. This is always a fun social event, good food, laughs as we review the past year, installation of the new officers, and time for the new president to give us some idea of the plans for the coming year.
One thing we have discussed many times in the past is the number of requests for our alley for charity events. Currently it’s winter and snow season here but as soon as spring breaks out, we begin to get a lot of requests for walkathon events, relay for life events, and other charity things asking for the appearances of clowns. This past year, we had to turn down a number of these events because we simply could not do them all.
Many of the walkathon things in our area are held on Sunday morning so many of our members can’t attend because of church obligations at that time. Other things like events at nursing homes are generally held in the afternoon and many of our members are still at their full-time jobs. In other cases, we just get a multitude of requests for the same time and date.
At one time, our alley chose one charity each year and worked for that all year long, raising money in a variety of ways, and being active in all their events. Our alley was very active with Camp Quality, a Kids Cancer Camp in this area, for a number of years. We used to do a fund-raising festival for them, visit the camp, and support their events, particularly fund-raisers. That worked very well but left us very thinly spread for all the other charities in the area. Camp Quality no longer has fund-raising festivals that would include clowns so we haven’t been as active with them in the last few years.
Some alleys meet in a church or library or private school and do events to help their sponsoring host raise money throughout the year. When we met in a church a few years ago, we gave to their food pantry and brought toys and food baskets during the Christmas holiday.
My alley did a large collection for Toys for Tots at our annual banquet for many years but we have now moved our annual banquet to January so we no longer are doing that.
Another alley I belong to has always worked the Salvation Army kettles during the holidays and last night I heard they raised more money this year than ever before by playing as clowns and collecting for the kettles. That’s a great report!
It’s the beginning of the year. Does your alley need to develop some sort of a plan to be able to clown for the charity events in your area? Do you have enough participation at a variety of times during the week that you can cover all the requests you get? Would your members like to “specialize” with just a few charities in your local area so you get to know them and they get to know your clowning skills in a better way?
Every alley needs a proper blend of charity events and paid shows in order to pay their bills, send out the newsletter, build and update props, and simply function as an organization. Now is a good time to review your club policies on charity events before the overwhelming number of requests come in the spring. If you have any unique ways of choosing what events you do, please feel free to share with me and I will pass along the tips and techniques to all of our alleys

Janet “Jelly Bean” Tucker, Alley Director