#chowdown in review (a blog post!)

Three weeks later and everyone at #hartnelldown is still feeling excited about the foundation’s #chowdown event, that took place on Sunday, November 3, at Spasso Italian Grill in Old City. The general reaction from those who attended ranged from, “It was awesome!” to “Great event!” and lots of other positive words in between, and that, along with the money raised, is what it’s all about.

The most exciting part for me was seeing the event come together, step by step. As a #hartnelldown intern this summer, we (the other interns and myself) were given the task of coming up with ideas for promotional events the foundation could hold. What began as an idea for dinner and drinks with Scott (the naming process took a little while – for the longest time, we couldn’t stop calling it “An Evening with Scott Hartnell.” Obviously, that wasn’t the vibe we were looking for…), turned into #chowdown a few months later, and the transition from the early stages of planning (I literally remember nervously calling Spasso to discuss menu, pricing, etc. in August), to actually being there in November on board with #hartnelldown, was quite the learning experience.

I think my favorite thing about #hartnelldown is that we pride ourselves in being “fun people.” As silly as that sounds, it works; it is a foundation that supports youth and physical activity, and was started by a player who is known for being a little goofy on and off the ice. Thus, it just makes sense to keep it light hearted. And that’s how a lot of what went on at #chowdown came together – by keeping in mind the mission of the foundation, and seeing how far we could take our sometimes ridiculous ideas. Great example of this: the cup stacking. For those who don’t know much about what went on at #chowdown, aside from great food and drinks, we launched the now available #hartnelldown app for iPhone and Android, introduced the upcoming children’s book (set to release in December), raffled off some super cool prizes, AND had Scott compete against a local cup stacker, who was seriously impressive at his own game.

The idea of the cup stacking contest came about like this:

Carrie: We need to think of a contest Scott could compete in. How funny would that be?
Laura: What about like…cup stacking? That would be ridiculous. And if he dropped the cups they would be FALLING DOWN!

Googling cup stacking and YouTubing random videos followed for about thirty minutes, and a few phone calls and emails later, we had a stacker lined up to come challenge Scott.

And that was really it; the idea was completely random, and the concept came about organically, through a regular exchange of bouncing ideas off each other. (It also helps when you think you’re being hilarious, but that can take time.)

So overall, the event was definitely a success. We raised money, and those who attended (which included all sorts of Hartsy fans, ranging from an 11-year old girl wearing a pendant that featured Scott’s face around her neck, a thoughtful boy who had raised money for the foundation through his mitzvah project, and various contest winners) had an #awesome time. Until next year – because we’re hoping to make #chowdown an annual event – keep an eye out for everything else coming your way from #hartnelldown!

PS: if you haven’t seen pictures from #chowdown, check them out here on Scott’s Facebook page!