August Newsletter Posted

The August Newsletter for District 6220 is available at http://www.ridistrict6220.org/newsletters/august2010.pdf. 

Lakeland Clubs’ “Rump Roast Run” Fundraiser Continues to Grow

Contact: Susan Pukall at suepukall@hotmail.com for more information

It sounds wacky – it is wacky – but “Rotary’s Rump Roast Run” generates serious fundraising dollars for the two clubs in the Minocqua area.

While many serious runners turn out for the 5- and 10-kilometer race, others show up in cow costumes, or wear black and white spotted caps, or t-shirts showing a butcher’s diagram of cuts of beef. One couple dresses their Welsh corgi up in a different costume each year to do the 5k fun walk. The grand prize for the top finishers in each race? A 20-pound hunk of raw beef!

Why the bovine theme? The clubs started the event seven years ago, tying it into Minocqua’s annual Beef-A-Rama festival on the final Saturday of September. Beef-A-Rama is one of Wisconsin’s wackier food festivals and has been taking place in Minocqua for nearly 50 years. The event started as a way for downtown merchants to say “thank you” to tourists and summer residents at the end of the season.

Beef is slow-roasted all along the downtown main street by local businesses and community groups, and then each roast gets rated by “celebrity” judges. Many groups choose a different costume theme each year, and you can pass by Pirates of the Caribbean one minute and the giant Klementz sausage mascots the next. After the judging, the event turns a bit surreal, with each roast being paraded down the street on everything from silver platters to elaborate floats – a display that has been compared to something out of a Dr. Seuss story. The roasts are then taken to a park on the edge of town to be carved up and sold to the public as sandwiches.

“We thought a race could not only be a good fundraiser for the clubs and promote awareness of our public service projects, but would also be beneficial to the community if we could attract people into town earlier in the day,” says Rick Wilson, race coordinator and a member of the Lakeland/Minocqua Breakfast club. “The awards ceremony is over by late morning, so hopefully the participants will stay in town and do some shopping, attend the crafts fair, have a little lunch and watch the parade.”

The starter’s gun goes off at 9 a.m. but Rotarians are busy registering participants Friday night and early Saturday morning, making sure they get their numbered bibs, long-sleeved commemorative t-shirts and bottled water.

The racecourse starts in downtown Minocqua but quickly shifts to hug the shore of Lake Minocqua, then turns down wooded country lanes. The 5-kilometer participants finish by crossing an old railroad trestle back to the island, while the 10-kilometer runners head down a former railroad bed called the Bearskin Trail before turning around and finishing back across the trestle.

 “Runners consistently say this is one of the prettiest courses they’ve ever done,” Wilson said. “They enjoy running past the lake, and the fall colors are almost always starting to turn here by the end of September.”

The first Rump Roast Run drew 85 participants but that number tripled the following year due largely to positive word of mouth, and grew to over 650 last year. The Lakeland Rotarians also hold a 1-mile run for children 12 and under that now draws over 60 kids.

An awards ceremony wraps the event up, with the top 3 finishers by gender and age brackets receiving awards, and the top finishers in each distance getting the afore-mentioned roasts – and a cooler to take it home in.

However, though their work with the race is then over for the day, in 2009 the Minocqua Rotarians decided there was opportunity to increase their fundraising at Beef-A-Rama by hosting a beer tent during the afternoon. That, too, was a success and the plan is to continue it.

A lot of work but the proof is in the bank account
After a few years of planning this event, the race committee members know what needs to be done and are busy on and off throughout the year. A week after the event, they get together to talk about what worked well and what could be improved for the following year. Thank you letters and receipts are sent to sponsors and donors. Results are posted to the website. And then the whole cycle of finding sponsors and planning the next year’s event starts all over.

But the proof of the event’s success is in the bank statement: The run has generated a cumulative total of $84,000 for the two clubs over the first six years. The funds have been used to support both clubs community service projects, including construction of a park pavilion with public restrooms, donating playground equipment to the Town of Hazelhurst, and a large financial contribution to the Lakeland Food Pantry when it moved to a larger building.

The hope that the event would also benefit the community was confirmed by research conducted by the Lakeland High School marketing class in 2008.

Contacting past race participants, their research showed that over half came from more than 75 miles away, and most said they dined out during the weekend or shopped locally. The class extrapolated the reported spending levels to all race participants and estimated that the runners spent about $45,000 in the area during the 2007 event.

They gave high marks to the friendliness of the Rotarian volunteers and ninety percent of the participants surveyed said they planned to return in the future, with many of those saying they would bring additional friends with them. One participant summed it up best: “We had such a great time at the Run and Beef-a-Rama--there will probably be an even larger contingent from Hayward next year.  You people really know how to throw a party.”

History of District 6220 Posted

Learn more about the history of District 6220 by visiting the history page at http://www.ridistrict6220.org/about/historyofdistrict.htm.  A special thank you to PDG Pryse Duerfeldt for collecting the information.