Christmas Carol Bar Crawl

About ten years ago my friend Nate and I sat together having drinks and came up with an idea of a Christmas carol bar crawl through Broad Ripple.

We began our first crawl with eleven people. Ugly sweaters, Christmas pajamas and a few other silly costumes. It was small but the potential was there. The next year our numbers more than doubled. We laughed, caroled and may of ruffled a few feathers of the people at Kilroy's. The following morning I was quick to send out an invite for year three.

As we got midway through the year there was some discussion of making the event a fundraiser. That year we paired up with Pub Theology and our crew of friends raised $2,155 for Gifts of Grace. The following year four, we upped our donation to $2,402.

For year five, we had some larger than life donors and friends really dug into their Christmas spending money to spread the love. We also focused on a new local charity, The Julian Center. With last minute donations, literally made at the first stop of the crawl, we hit the $3,500 milestone.

Our core carolers have now grown to nearly fifty with many more making donations and for year six we set a goal of $5,000 and if that was met, I would be shaving my head. Well that goal was met and exceeded as we raised more than $7,500.

Year seven we became even more ambitious with a goal of $10,000. With the cherry on top event Shots for Tots we reached this monumental goal. I was in awe that night and had to count the donations three times and to make sure I wasn't dreaming even asked for a pinch from one of Santa's elves.

Year eight we had another strong showing and raised $8,614. This set our sights on a total of $50,000 raised through this event and the wonderful people of the Broad Ripple village. Unfortunately for Broad Ripple and the world, Covid came in 2020 and the world paused.

We are ecstatic to be back in 2021 for what could be the last year of the Christmas Carol Bar Crawl. With a goal of $9,891 to reach the $50,000 mark.