Updates and March Bash!

The March Bash is coming! It's next Saturday!

On Tuesday, February 28, we will be having our last meeting of the quarter!
Date: Tuesday, Feb 28
Time: 6pm or 7pm (you can come to either one for your convenience)
What: We are collecting the money donations that you gathered for the March Bash. You do not have to come to the meeting if you do not have money to turn in.
Where: A and I Lobby

March Bash
For the March Bash, we are trying to get as many people (associate members, college buddies, family members, and all your friends/guests) to come to this event. It's Saturday March 4 from 10am to 4pm at the University of Southern California (USC), so PLS reserve this date. It will be a VERY BIG event with lots of free food, and we have an EXCELLENT chance of being recognized as an outstanding chapter, so PLS come to this once in a life time experience! It will consist of a friendship walk so we will be walking together as the UCR group. There will also be a lot of music and entertainment there...There may even be celebrities! We have our own booth too so that people from other chapters can come meet our outstanding one!

Calling all College Buddies and Associate Members,

Our goal as an organization is to raise $1,000 total for the event. We have decided to put into the March Bash most of the money we raised during Winter Quarter. That is, $100 from the Valentine Sale and $300 from sponsoring a vendor onto campus. If you guys are able to earn a total of $400 through gathering money donations, we will put in another $200 from the See's Candy Sale of Fall Quarter (to make a total of $1,000).....Remember that if we raise $1,000, we will get free t-shirts for everyone at the Bash, we will get $250 back to our organization, and we will get a free ticket for the trip to Indiana that the future President will take. Also remember the impact you are making in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities in California if you make $400 total~!

The UCR Best Buddies t-shirt WILL be ready by the March Bash.

We love your dedication. Go UC Riverside Best Buddies!

All checks are written to Best buddies California.

The UCR Best Buddies t-shirt WILL be ready by the March Bash.

Night out with the Buddies

I really had an awesome time at last night's group event. I drove some of the buddies to UCR, and they were all really excited about watching the game. Although Stacey (my Buddy) couldn't come, I had some time to get to know some of the other Buddies. Jason, Tim, Hugo, and David are all great personalities and very funny guys. I can't forget Robert, who loves to tell me elaborate and entertaining stories. Coming back to Project Team, they were divided about what they liked best; but they all agreed that they had tons of fun!

Basketball Game 2 18 06

Valentine Party at Project Team 2 14 06

February Events Recap!

Hey there!

We are on a roll ! We have been conducting interviews each week it seems! Our newest college buddy is Elizabeth Murillo. We also have a new associate member Robert Karras. Let us warmly welcome these two members to our organization.

This month we had many successful events!

For our Valentine's Day Card Fundraiser, we would like to thank all these officers and members for helping us make cards and/or helping us sell those cards at UCR:

Christina McKee
Stephanie Do
Sara Phung
Anna Nguyen
Nina Grewal
Adriana Gonzalez
Marisol Sanchez
Janette Rodriguez
Chetana Bhatt
Christopher Rivera

We would also like to thank Victor Iniguez for donating lollipops for the V-card sales~! The cards we made were very colorful and creative. Let us thank everyone who was also able to donate Valentine Card materials including Selina Tam! We spent less than $5 on the materials, and we made $100 total !!! This money will go towards our Best Buddies March 4 Bash. By the way, this means we've made $1300 for the year and we are getting closer to our goal of $2000 by June!

For our Valentine's Party at PROJECT TEAM, we were able to give each of our buddies the handmade Valentine's Day cards! Let us thank Jenny Tan, Jenna Bernal, and Anna Nguyen for making it to the party! Most of the buddies were there as well as our host site adviser Eldon Rynders. The buddies sang to karaoke while our members enjoyed delicious heart shaped cookies and fruit punch. Everyone had such a pleasant time at the party!

Today we watched our UCR vs. SE Missouri Men's Basketball Game. With 24 people in attendance and a win for UCR Score: 69 (UCR) to 61 (opponent), this event is definitely memorable. After watching the game, we treated everyone to Shakey's Pizza and soda! Let us thank all our buddies and these members for attending our event:

Christina McKee
Robert Karras
Mohammad Abdel-al
Derrick Hansen
Sarah S.
Anna Nguyen
Lars Knustad
Kevin Izquierdo
Stephanie and Victoria Do

We greatly appreciate your support. Thank you for all of you who dedicate so much time into this organization. We will post pictures on www.best-buddies-riverside.blogspot.com by tomorrow morning, so please take a look!

It looks like we WILL NOT be having the Homecoming Spirit Fundraiser b/c the people who are doing that have not told us anything about it.

For T-shirts, we have been looking around for good prices. It looks like we will probably have T-shirts ready by the March Bash.

FOR THE MARCH BASH, KEEP ON GETTING THOSE DONATIONS! WE WILL BE SETTING A MEETING AT THE END OF FEBRUARY or EARLY MARCH TO COLLECT THE MONEY THAT YOU GATHERED. REMEMBER THAN YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GO TO THE BASH TO COLLECT THE MONEY DONATIONS.........We hope everyone has a good night and a long relaxing weekend.

See you soon at the Bash, the biggest, most important event of the year! Please save this date if you can.

Regards,

Best Buddies Officers

Active Members of January!!!

Active Members of the Month of January!

College Buddy Pair: Matt Granum and Johnny Haines

Matt has been a part of Best Buddies since last year, so he has been buddies with Johnny for a long time! One thing so great about this friendship is that it is an equal one in which both people take initiative in contacting in each and spending quality time with each other. For the month of January, Matt and Johnny spoke on the phone almost everyday. They also went race car driving and played nintendo at Matt's house. As you can see, these people are enriching each others lives and they show creativity in the activities they love to do~! Matt has attended a lot of our group activities this year, including our meetings, the Block Party, the Ice Cream Social, the January Dance, and the First Matching Social of October. Matt and Johnny came up with the idea of the the Ice Cream Social and Matt has also generously let us have our ice cream social at his house. This is greatly appreciated!

Johnny Haines has been an active part of Best Buddies since it started at UCR in 2003. He is very sociable and is our current Buddy Director. Over the years, Johnny has made good friends with many college buddies and associate members, especially the three college buddy directors. He is a very responsible officer, helping us by making phone calls to members, gathering ideas for group events, attending the summer leadership conference, and coming to our meetings and group events. We cannot think of one group event in which Johnny did not attend!

Associate Member of January: Khoa Pham!

If you know Khoa, you will know that he is a very cheerful person. His smile would brighten up your day. Khoa always keeps a good attitude and has been active with us since he joined in October of 2005~! We are happy to say that Khoa is the active member of January, having attended events like our October Matching Social and our January Dance. In October, Khoa volunteered to lead our members on a bus tour so that college buddies who do not have cars would be able to use public transportation to spend time with their buddies. Khoa also volunteered to sell Valentine Cards in the case we could not find anyone. Thank you Khoa for everything you do!

Remember at the end of the year we will pick the college buddy, buddy, and associate member of the year! We will only be picking from the pool of active members that we recognize every month.

Basketball Game This Saturday!

REMINDER:

Our next group event will be this Saturday, February 18th.

Watching UCR Men's Basketball Game

Date: February 18, 2006Time: 4:00 p.m.-6:30pm (Meet by the Rec Center Ticket booth at 3:30pm)
***After the game (After 6:30pm), we will be TREATING all members to FREE PIZZA at Shakeys, so come hungry!***Sport: Men's BasketballOpponent/Title: SE Missouri - Bracket Buster Location: Student Recreation Center Gym
FREE WITH STUDENT ID CARD. If you don't show your student ID card, there will a fee to buy the tickets. It will be around $10.