The Bouldest Mile: A 10k Run + $1,000 in Donations and A Few Fun Prizes

A happy student at the Goldstone School of HOPE Worldwide, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

This is my first grassroots promotion experiment. All at once, I have hopes of it being a huge success, and hot flashes from the very real possibility of it being a total failure. With that said, I need your help!

Every year the city of Boulder hosts the wildly exciting, massively successful Bolder Boulder 10k Run (50,000 expected participants, making it the largest timed race in the US). Miyoko and I have lived in Boulder for just over a year, and are constantly on the lookout for ways to plug ourselves into the Boulder Community. This is our ticket.

This will be our first Bolder Boulder and beyond simple completion (which is a lofty goal for each of us in it’s own right), we are turning this race into a chance to do something meaningful and an opportunity to create a cool experience for ourselves and our friends, you all, with a fun little competition to bring it all together!

What We’re Doing

As you may know, we have lead the Boulder Campus Ministry at the University of Colorado, for the 2009-2010 school year, and are strong believers in campus ministry and Christian missions in general. Therefore, we are using this race as a means to generate funds for foreign and domestic missions through our church’s annual special missions contribution (Church Goal: $167,200).

This offering goes towards a few important things: First and foremost, to supporting overseas mission work and foreign missionaries in countries such as Vietnam (underground church), Thailand, Cambodia and Laos (Total Given to Overseas: $104,000). Miyoko and I have had the privilege to visit a few of these churches and to see the work that is going on there. To say the least, it is incredible.

Take for example, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. There, our giving supports a local congregation of Christians who are involved in some truly inspiring work. They work closely with the Sihanouk Hospital, which provides top-quality, professional healthcare to the city’s poorest people, 100% free of charge. This group also works with the Goldstone School of HOPE Worldwide, which provides a free, English speaking education to the local Khmer youth. (Every year a grade level is added and the school expands its membership. I believe they are now in their 9th year of operation, and will soon be graduating their first class of students, having completed a full 12 years of English-spoken education. Many are becoming Christians who will go on to university level education and will become leaders in their communities.)

Always excited to see their faces on camera.

Secondly, our giving goes to support local campus ministry work in the state of Colorado ($63,000). This is what afforded Miyoko and me the chance to spend the past year working with and counseling college students with the gospel of peace, and will give others the chance to do so in the future. We are grateful to be a part of a church that believes in and supports college ministries, and are whole-heartedly behind this cause as well.

On May 23rd, we will give this special missions offering. Our personal goal is to raise $1,000 in cash to donate to these causes. Your generosity will directly support the leadership and oversight needed to take these types of projects to the next level. With your help, we hope to meet our goal through this race.

How You Can Help

If you care at all about Christian missions in general, or even if really only care about good things happening to needy people, on a global scale (i.e. free healthcare and education to impoverished people), then this is your chance to make an impact on those who will never be able to repay you and will never be able to thank you for it (usually the best kinds of people to help). Here’s how this works:

1.) Donate Directly. We do hope and anticipate that a large portion of our goal will come from direct donations. So please, if you have a heart for these types of things, donate right here, right now. All donations are tax deductible, totally secure through PayPal, and will go 100% to these non-profits. Donations must be received through this site by our May 23rd deadline.

2.) Spread the Word. This is where it gets fun. Simultaneously with your donations, we will be running a contest to see who can do the most promotion for our cause and help us completely destroy our goal. Using the power of social networking, this can happen in a few ways:

Become a Fan of bouldlife on Facebook. After you have done that, post a link to this post on your Facebook wall using the @bouldlife tag. Or Follow me on Twitter @ryanpflynn. Once you’ve done that, post a link to this post in your Twitter Feed and use the tag #boulderspecialmissions

The important part is providing a working link to this post (see below), and some means of tracking your promotion efforts.

Here’s where our giving comes in. For every fan gained on the bouldlife fan page or for every follower gained on Twitter, I will instantly donate $2 to my own cause. (Measuring gained fans on Facebook will be easy, but for Twitter, this is why I’m asking that you include the tag: #boulderspecialmissions so that I’m able to easily track this increase).

In order to win this contest, you’ll need to track clicks to your link with some type of link tracking service such as http://bit.ly or http://ping.fm. This will provide you with a unique link and associated data for how many clicks your link has received.

Here are a few links that you can use for posting to your social networking sites and directing people to this post.

Twitter Link: http://www.twitter.com/ryanpflynn

Direct Link to This Post: http://bouldlife.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/the-bouldest-mile

Shortened Link to this post: http://wp.me/pyHGi-dZ

Need something to say? You can post this exact phrase into your Twitter or Facebook feeds – The Bouldest Mile: 10k Run + $1,000 in Donations and A Few Fun Prizes – http://wp.me/pyHGi-dZ

Other services you may want to use to share this post include: Google Buzz, digg, Stumbleupon, del.icio.us, direct e-mails to friends and family, or your own personal blog. Full license to be as creative as you’d like!

3.) Report Results Back Here. Finally, in order to win the contest, you’ll need to report your results back here by leaving a comment on this post. The deadline for comments is Midnight (Mountain Time), on Saturday, May 22nd.

Results can be reported in the form of total click count for your unique link, via Facebook, Twitter, etc., records of e-mails sent to friends, or any other creative form of tracking results that you can think of.

What You’ll Get

As if supporting foreign missions and education in the third world wasn’t incentive enough!

We have some fun prizes for our top three promoters.

First Place Grand Prize Winner: Official Bolder Boulder Hoodie

As a thank you to our first place promoter, we’d like to send you the Official Bolder Boulder Hoodie.

Men’s Raw Edge Hoodie or Women’s Raw Edge Hoodie.

We’ll need to purchase this sometime between our May 23rd cutoff date and the actual race day on May 31st, so once we notify you as the winner, let us know your size and we’ll get your hoodie sent out ASAP.

Approximate Value: $40.00

(2) Runner Up Promoters: Official 2010 Bolder Boulder Shirts

For our two runner up promoters, we’ll hook you up with the Official 2010 Bolder Boulder Long Sleeve Race Shirt, or the ‘Sea Level Is For Sissies’ Long Sleeve Shirt. Both of these shirts are cool no matter what.

Just let me know which one you’d like and what size you think you are, and the shirt is yours.

Approximate Value Each: $20.00

To All of Our Donors: A personalize thank you card from Miyoko and myself.

Summary of Important Details

• Donate directly on this page.
• Our goal is $1,000.
• Spread the word by following @ryanpflynn on Twitter and/or bouldlife on Facebook, and post one of the above links to this page on your social networking feeds using specific tags, etc. For every unique fan or follower added, we will donate $2 to our own cause.
• Report results back here in the form of a comment on this post (Please include your name and any necessary contact info).
• Deadline for donations and reporting results is Midnight (MT) on Saturday, May 22nd.
• Prizes go out to top three promoters. (NOTE: We can only ship to US domestic addresses)
• You reap the enjoyment of doing something kind for someone else.

We sincerely hope that you will choose to participate and help us reach our goal this year, while making a difference in countless lives. It really doesn’t take much, and hopefully the combined efforts of many can amount to great work down the road!

Thanks in advance for your generous support! (Ryan & Miyoko, Boulder, CO, 2010)

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