You say that it won't be sanctioned as you want as much money as possible to go to the kids but you may be overlooking the fact that teams from out of town as well as out of state won't travel to this event simply because it isn't sanctioned by a national organization. Perhaps you should contact Gene Goycochea or Merl & Carol Whitebook, all members of the KCBS Board of Directors and very good friends of barbeque in Arizona, to see what options are available.
The last events held in Arizona, in Buckeye and Tempe, (sanctioned by KCBS and IBCA respectively), both drew in excess of 30 teams and those teams came from Arizona, California, Texas, New Mexico, and Illinois. It's awfully hard to argue with that kind of response.
I can tell you that it is becoming increasingly difficult for us and many other teams that we know to participate in competitions that are unsanctioned because they are trying to be done "on the cheap".