We had the "Our volunteers are Stars". We hung up Stars and actually had a Giant Gold Oscar that another group had made and we borrowed. The best part was the entertainment. We had a staff member dress up in an evening gown, wear a tiara, sunglasses etc and went around taking pictures of her doing various tasks (dressed up) that our volunteers do. We put them into a slide show and she came out at the event. We had a couple of other staff members with cameras flashing and she burst into the event with the "paparrazi" taking her picture. She went up and made a speech about being a star "Fifi Lebeaux". She talked about decided to volunteer at our agency for a day to do a life in the day of a volunteer. She went through each slide talking about cutting the grass etc. We put our own little humour into it. At the end of the speech she said "Boy was I exhausted" The life of a star is exhausting. But the real stars are you the volunteers who do these things every day. It was funny and everyone loved it. At the end when she revealed the part about the volunteers being the real stars you could hear a collective "Ahhh" like they all "got it". People were still asking about it the next year if "Fifi" was going to make another appearance. It was great. Hope this helps.

Hello there,
My last recognition party was Hollywood style. All the staff volunteered to be the waiter and waitress' to all the volunteers. They dressed up like a character in hollywood. We had Grocho Marx, Tina Turner, Elvis. I borrowed lots of Hollywood decorations from the local high school. One of them in the area had a prom with that theme and was glad to lend me the decorations. Had two large oscars made out of manequins painted gold. Had posters that they got from Blockbuster, etc and mounted them on cardboard. They surrounded them with Christmas lights (white_) and they looked like they were lighted all around. We sure had alot of fun. When they arrived we had them on camera and had a monitor inside so everyone inside could see the who was coming in. I was the Joan Rivers on the carpet with a microphone. we had a great time and it didnt cost alot to do. Have fun.