Candy Cane Grams Charity Project

1 Community Service Project | Pinkerton Academy DECA
I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Goodwill Industries was established in 1902 and the goal of this organization is to
provide job training, employment placement services and other community-based programs
for people who have a disability, little education or job experience, and/or face employment
challenges. Through selling candy canes to the students of Pinkerton Academy we planned
to raise money to help Goodwill Industries during the holiday season.
We sold candy cane grams for one week for students to send candy canes to their
friends. We sold 131 candy canes and raised $151.00.
Organization:
The project had to stay extremely organized because Pinkerton Academy has three
different cafeterias there are so many people involved in selling the candy canes during
different parts of the day. We also made announcements every day about the candy cane
grams.
With our DECA advisor, Mrs. Jennifer Scheffer, and her support of the project we
successfully sold a lot of candy canes and helped raise money for a worthy cause.
Evaluation:
Because we only had a few weeks to completely plan and implement the project there
was a lot of room for improvement if we had more time to plan and organize. For future
projects I would recommend starting the approval and planning process far in advance to
allow for more time of advertising and organizing and therefore greater profitability.
(Some of the DECA members who helped make this project a success)

II. INTRODUCTION
A. Historic Background of the selected community service or charity
Goodwill
Goodwill Industries was established in 1902 and the goal of this
organization is to provide job training, employment placement services and
other community-based programs for people who have a disability, little
education or job experience, and/or face employment challenges.
Goodwill was founded by Rev. Edgar J. Helms, a Methodist minister. Rev. Helms
gathered used items from upper class areas in Boston and then hired people from the poorer
areas to sell these items. This process worked and today Goodwill is a $4 Billion nonprofit
organization.
B. Description of the local DECA chapter, school, and community
The Pinkerton Academy DECA chapter is an important aspect to the Marketing
education program at Pinkerton Academy. The DECA chapter advisor is also the Marketing
and Business Management level 2 instructor, Mrs. Jennifer Scheffer. The Marketing
Education and DECA program at Pinkerton Academy focus on
preparing students for careers in today’s society. Mrs. Scheffer
focuses immensely on learning through technology to keep students
up to date with the most current information and statistics to help her

students succeed in the 21st century. The marketing program also works to run the DECA
sponsored school based enterprise, Campus Corner.
Teamwork is a skill that the Pinkerton Academy DECA chapter and marketing program
focus on. In almost every project or DECA event members must work together and learn
how to work with different people. The focus on teamwork strengthens communication
skills and the ability to understand others thoughts, opinions, and ideas.
Pinkerton Academy is a semi-private high school located in the town of Derry, New
Hampshire. It is the home of the Pinkerton Astros, our athletic teams named after Alan B.
Shepard, a Pinkerton alumnus who was the first American astronaut in space. There are
currently more than 3,000 students enrolled at Pinkerton Academy and its campus consists
of more than 170 acres and 17 buildings, 9 of which are academic buildings while 8 of the
buildings are smaller buildings for offices and specialty courses.
Pinkerton Academy was founded in 1815 by John Pinkerton as an all-male
institution. By 1817 the academy allowed women to enroll as students also. Pinkerton was a
boarding school with tuition of $2.00 per academic quarter. Pinkerton was a boarding school
until 1948 and in 1949 made an agreement with the town of Derry, New Hampshire to
become their primary high school. Since then, the towns of Hampstead, Chester, and
Auburn have signed contracts with Pinkerton Academy making the academy the largest
independent high school in the United States.

III. CONTRIBUTION TO A NEEDED COMMUNITY SERVICE OR CHARITY
A. Description and Purpose of the Project
Our Candy Cane Grams project allowed students form Pinkerton Academy to send
candy canes with messages to their friends all over school. Candy Canes were available for
purchase in the freshman cafeteria, underclassmen cafeteria, and the senior cafeteria one
week prior to the delivery date to allow time to organize the candy cane grams.
The purpose of this project is to help chapter members with their development of
leadership skills and to impact the community in a positive way in a season where help is
always appreciated. This project will also help chapter members strengthen communication
skills because there is such a large student body and there are so many potential customers
so getting the message out about the candy canes will be a challenge.
B. Rationale for Selecting the Community Service or Charitable Project
As part of our Marketing Education program we learn about different marketing
strategies during different times of the year. Creating different promotional events based on
the seasons. To go along with the holiday season we wanted to do a fun project that would
also give us good learning experience. We chose to do candy cane grams because of how
popular the movie, Mean Girls, is in our generation and because we sell balloon grams year
round with an emphasis on Valentine’s Day but we do not deliver anything special for the

holiday season. There was a lot of potential for sales with a school that always gets into the
spirit of the holidays and such a large student body.
Because the holidays can be such difficult times for people this also gave us an
opportunity to give back to the community. By choosing to donate the gifts purchased to
Goodwill around the holidays it would give local community members who are on a budget
this holiday season to purchase Christmas gifts for their children at lower prices than they
would be at other stores. Also, with the current state of the economy and jobs being so
difficult to find we knew that every purchase at goodwill would help underprivileged people
in their search for jobs.
C. Description of the benefits of the project to the chapter and chapter members’
understanding of leadership development, social intelligence and community
service
The project was a very rewarding project because everything that was done on it was to
help people in need. Our DECA chapter emerged as a leader in community service in the
school because of this project and a few other community service projects and our ability to
make our efforts known.
Organizing a project as large as this takes a lot of leadership and management skills
because there are so many members helping with it so organization becomes a challenge.
This project definitely proved that leadership and organizational skills complement each
other immensely.

IV. ORGANIZATION AND IMPLEMENTATION
A. Organizational Chart, Member Involvement, and Job Description
Organizing the Candy Cane Gram sales took a great amount of chapter involvement and
time. With the help of the DECA chapter and advisor, Mrs. Jennifer Scheffer, this project
was a success. I have created organizational charts to display the involvement of members.
Project Director- Rebecca Gray
• Created original fundraising idea
• Coordinated fundraising activities
• Created all written documents and advertisements
• Went through school activity approval process for activity itself and all fliers for
the candy cane grams

Advisor: Mrs. Jennifer Scheffer
Organizer: Rebecca Gray
Members who made announcements about candy canes:
Catherine Decloux, Rebecca Gray, Michaela Genetti, Mike Demarco, Ben Raymond, Tom McCarthy, Aaron
Wallack
Members who sold candy canes in cafeterias:
Catherine Decloux, Michaela Gennetti, Lindsey Mote, Mike Fagone, Christopher Bono, Ben Raymond, Darby
Batjer, Rebecca Gray, Marena Maggio, Tom McCarthy, Stephanie Jasbon, Cassandra Bouchard, Jennifer Forys,
Kayla Wood
Candy Cane Organizers:
Rebecca Gray, Darby Batjer, Elizabeth Couto, Michaela Genetti, Samantha Bresnahan
Candy Cane Delivery Team:
Ben Raymond, Samantha Bresnahan, Jennifer Forys, Tom McCarthy, Darby Batjer, Rebecca Gray
Purchasing and delivery of gifts:
Kayla Wood, Rebca Gray, Josh Brien

B. Description of the Project and Documentation
To plan an activity at Pinkerton Academy, an activity approval form must first be submitted
and then approved by administration. A scan of our activity approval form is viewable
below:

In addition to getting the activity approved, the fliers to be hung up around campus
must also be approved by administration. The flier we used is displayed below:

When each candy cane was sold each customer filled out a candy cane gram sheet
that had who they were sending it to and where it would be delivered. The candy gram card
we used is pictured below:

We recorded the total profit made each period of each day in an excel spreadsheet.
We sold 131 candy canes and made a total of $151.00 to spend on holiday gifts. The
spreadsheet that tracked the money made is viewable below:
C. Impact Goal for the Beneficiary
Through selling candy canes I learned a lot about the challenges of sales and how time
consuming a project like this can become. Originally I wanted to sell at least 100 candy canes
and we surpassed that goal by 31. By selling these candy canes our DECA chapter made an
impact in the community because our efforts went to help people in various types of need.
On the next page is a photo of the gifts we purchased. There are a variety of perfumes
and cologne sprays along with scarves, hats, posters, lotions, and DVDs.
Candy Cane Grams
10-Dec 11-Dec 12-Dec 13-Dec 14-Dec Total
Freshman Period E 3.00$ 2.00$ 5.00$ 5.00$ 7.00$ 22.00$
Freshman Period F 2.00$ 3.00$ 1.50$ 9.50$ 3.00$ 19.00$
Freshman Period G 4.00$ 4.00$ 3.00$ 2.00$ 2.00$ 15.00$
Underclassmen period E 1.50$ -$ 1.50$ 3.00$ 1.50$ 7.50$
Underclassmen period F 3.00$ 4.50$ 4.00$ 3.00$ 5.00$ 19.50$
Underclassmen period G 4.00$ 14.50$ 6.00$ 10.00$ 2.00$ 36.50$
Senior Period E -$ 5.50$ -$ -$ 5.00$ 10.50$
Senior Period F 1.50$ 1.50$ 4.00$ -$ 2.00$ 9.00$
Senior Period G 5.00$ -$ 2.00$ -$ 5.00$ 12.00$
Total 24.00$ 35.00$ 27.00$ 32.50$ 32.50$ 151.00$

V. EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Evaluation of the Project
When considering the amount of teamwork and effort that went into this project it went
really well. We not only helped our community but also learned how to work with people we
may not have necessarily ever worked with if not for this project. The time of year was right
for a service project like this with so many families and people in need during the holiday
season and everyone worked extra hard to make sure this project was a success. It was a fun
idea and the reactions of students when they received candy canes were very excited.
B. Recommendations for Future Projects
For future community service projects I would recommend planning them more in
advance. Because we came up with this idea with only a few weeks to prepare and execute

the project it did not have enough planning or advertising as it should have had. If we had
more time to market the candy canes we most likely would have been able to sell more.

Candy Cane Grams Charity Project

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