Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Show & Tell: Date Night With A Cause

Good morning Humble Readers!

The company I work for puts a big emphasis on giving back to the community. Our in-house charity supports children's literacy. Every year, for the last five years, we have been able to distribute 1.5 million dollars among high needs elementary schools to help rebuild their libraries. Most of that money comes from the store level, donations provided by our customers and from our staff.

Here are some statistics for you (Canadian stats)... back in the day, when I was in elementary school, a school received $27 per student per year to buy new books and resources for their library. Today the average school receives $3 per student per year. Teachers invest an obscene amount of their own money in resources for their classrooms, and only 13% of Canadian public schools have a full time librarian. And the most shocking piece of info about this situation... if we increase the literacy rate in our country by just 1%, that will equal an $18.4 billion (yes, billion) boost for our economy. (One other piece of info that I don't recall the exact numbers on but is shocking nonetheless... the population of Canada's peneteniaries is more than 70% functionally illiterate!) Inspiring kids to read, and providing great resources for them is key for our coutry to continue to move forward.

So what does this have to do with our date night?

Well, one of my responsibilities at work is to come up with ways that we can fundraise for this project. I'm happy to say that my staff is really really gung-ho on this, and since April we have raised more than $10K, doing things like running lemonade stands, soliciting donations from our customers, and most recently a penny drive.

For the months of June-August we collected loose change. Pretty simple, right? We had a 5 gallon water jug more than half full of change. And last week my Beloved and I counted and rolled all that change!

We spent more than four hours on Friday night sorting, counting and rolling all that coin. My Beloved then spent a large chunk of Saturday rolling while I was at work the next day. All totalled we raised $340 in loose change. My Beloved did the math and we had more than 11,000 pennies.

And let me tell you... money is dirty! Check out the difference in my hands.

Don't forget to swing by Mel's place to check out what the rest of the class is showing this week!

15 comments :

  1. way to go!!!! congratulations!

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  2. Great effort! And bravo to your company for doing this! Shocking statistics - im sure it's the same for many other countries around the world, unfortunately. I would be amazed to see what more literacy would do for Morocco - we have an illiteracy rate of 60% of the entire population.

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  3. AWESOME! Congrats on the awesome fundraising.

    Sending happy bday wishes your way (if it's the 18th like I think it might be.) Hope you're having a blast in NYC with your Beloved.

    Hugs!

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  4. That is soooo great. Kudos to you for raising the cash for books. Now go wash your hands young lady.

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  5. Good work. Wow that's some dirt - wash up!

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  6. Way to go with your loose change collection.

    The filth on money always amazes me.

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  7. Wow, thats really an awesome thing you are doing. Congratulations on excellent fund raising.

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  8. You make a lot of sense! Or at least collect it.

    If you're looking for another fundraising idea, here's what I'm going to do at my kids' school:

    http://www.allthumbsreviews.com/2009/08/send-your-kids-back-to-school-with.html

    They retail for $4, but the socially-conscious mompreneurs will sell them to your organization for $2 (and you can charge what you want).

    Let me know if you want details.

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  9. this just proves that every lit bit helps... those pennies really added up!

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  10. Fundraising is one of the hardest jobs on earth! Good job!

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  11. I'm going to print out the picture of your hands and put them up in the bathroom to explain to the twins once and for all why they need to wash their hands after handling money :-)

    Congratulations on the fundraising!

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  12. Awesome work and have a nice getaway

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  13. wow, that's great. eww, that's dirty though

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