The 4Missoula "Skater" Scavenger Hunt!

Thank you to my girl, the lovely miss Juanita Tallman, for suggesting a scavenger hunt as a fun, corona-safe event for 4Missoula - nonprofit on a mission to donate skateboards to low-income kids. Juanita is a cultural interpreter at Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in Alberta and has experience hosting scavenger hunts, which I had never considered doing for 4Missoula, but once she explained a little about what they did it set my mind a-racing and I came up with this...

Here's how it works:

Over the next couple weeks I'm going to promote this webpage - Scavenger Hunt — 4Missoula where folks can register their team of up to 5 people for FREE. Hopefully I can sell some sponsorships to allow for a sweet grand prize to make things more interesting.

On the day of the event I will email team captains the first clue, which will set everything in motion. The 9 (or so) different stops on the hunt encircle Missoula, so I can start each team at a different spot to create sort of a circular flow around the valley and then, after completing the circle, the final "finish-line" clue will be in the center of town so that the distance, regardless of starting spot, for any team will be approximately the same.

Each stop has it's own secret webpage that teams can access through a QR code sticker placed on a pole or tree at each stop. Teams will need to have a web-enable smart phone to complete the course and they will also need a skateboard, because at each stop teams can also video a trick and then share to either Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter using a location-specific hashtag to enter a contest for "Best Trick". The polls will likely stay open for a couple weeks, so we'll have a winner for first team to finish and also a set of winners for the best trick at each stop along the way.

Every team will have access to the finish-line clue webpage, however they must collect letters (one at every stop), which will need to be assembled into a word to unlock the page. Then, with final clue in hand, it's a mad dash to the finish-line. I'm looking forward to being a race official and maybe help some teams on course with either explanations or maybe sharing their videos to the web. There are so many wonderful ways to interact with people in regards to this event.

From what I can tell this event is one-of-a-kind, so it's kind of ground-breaking, and if it works this kind of hands-free fundraising could be a thing of the future. Let's just hope people get it.