Aug 22, 20233 min read

KiV Event: Thank You Toast - Recap

Keep it Vertical has landed our first big partnership and we couldn’t have done it without your help. In order to raise almost $30,000, we started a Spotfund campaign to raise money. We are happy to announce that all funds have been raised and to celebrate, we hosted a Thank You Toast for our donors. Here’s how it went.

On Sunday, August 13th, we hosted our Thank You Toast in the lovely city of Santa Monica at Santa Monica Brew Works. First, let’s talk about the location! Santa Monica Brew Works in an indoor/outdoor brewery, complete with a beer garden, pizza, burgers and music! The food is sooo good and everything we had was tasty. Between us all, we had a bit of everything on the menu. Pizza, burgers, cauliflower - the works! The burger is my favorite. :) And next, the drinks!! Now, I am not a beer girl, but Santa Monica Brew Works has some of the most amazing and flavorful beer I’ve ever had. The beer we toasted with (because they don’t allow outside drinks) was called the Shandy and it’s a mix of beer and Hot Dog on a Stick lemonade, it kind of tasted like champagne. I suggest a Shandy and a burger for your visit!

The toast was truly a beautiful event. People began to arrive at exactly 2:00pm, with smiles and good energy - ready to toast and play. One of our donors, Taylor even brought succulent plants to add to our gift bags & Chef Heaven of Oh Baby made us cheesecake cupcake bites. The flavors were Oreo, blueberry and peach cobbler. And they were all so good! As attendees began to roll in, we played games and ate food until the toast started. I brought every card and board game in my house and a microphone, which was also a speaker and we played music over screams of “I GOT UNO”, “DOMINO” and “CONNECT FOUR, I WIN”!

The toast began with Thank You’s and gratitude before giving out candles as rewards to the first arrival, our biggest donor, the most encouraging person and to the person that brought in the most donors. After I said my thank yous and passed out rewards, we lifted our glasses in the air, I announced who our partnership is with and we said Keep it Vertical on three! After the toast, we played games, ate food and drank until the event ended. At the end of the event, each guest as given a gift bag that included a keychain, a lotto ticket ( from which one person won money), handmade chapstick made by my sister and a tea kit with honey and tea from black owned tea company, Blended Berries Tea.

At the end of the event, Taylor (a donor of ours) went home and gave a video review about the event. She shared that she had never seen anything like this event done before, specifically for people that are not huge subscribers, huge doners or twitch users. That review lit up my soul because it truly makes me happy to show gratitude and love to my supporters and I’d hadn’t considered if this has been done before, I didn’t worry about the cost or anything. But my donors took stress of my back and I wanted to do the same for them by offering a stress free day filled with food, drinks, games and good vibes - my treat.