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Candy Fundraising Grows Up

by Anita J.
(Washington, USA)

My daughter, Sandy, sold Worlds Finest Chocolate bars and candies throughout her elementary and secondary school years, having started Catholic school in first grade at the age of six. For most of the years, “selling” meant I took boxes of candy bars or other candy to work and left it in the break room with a note - $1.00 per bar – and left the ubiquitous yellow envelope in the box so people could pay and make their own change. When the box got low, I’d bring in another box. I worked for a law enforcement agency and “soliciting” was not allowed at work; so that’s how all of us fundraising moms did our fundraising.

Then she started high school, and things changed. Worlds Finest Chocolate was still part of the fundraising for her school. In fact, the candy sale was one of only two major fundraisers the girls were actually involved in – the other was a Jogathon that the girls ran every spring. During Sandy’s freshman year, I sold only a couple of boxes of candy bars at work. I guess that wasn’t up to her expectations, because the next year, her strategy changed.

As a sophomore, Sandy participated in a work study program. Her “employment” was to run the school’s computer lab, helping the other girls with their homework assignments, setting up computers, installing software, etc. One night she asked me to review a letter she was writing. “Dear ___________ “ it began, “I am writing to offer you an opportunity to participate in the annual candy sale at our academy.” The letter went on to describe the school and some of its programs. As an enclosure with the letter, Sandy prepared a postage-paid postcard where the recipient could indicate how much of each kind of candy he or she wanted to order, and indicated the amount of money would be collected upon delivery. She then created a database consisting of the principals of all the schools in the Archdiocese – and merged the database with the letter, generating a personalized letter for each principal.

I was mortified! This couldn’t be fair! This couldn’t be right! What about the “personal touch” of having a candy bar sold person-to-person? What about tradition?

So I asked her, “Honey, why are you doing it this way?”

Her reply? “Mom, face it – at some point a person is just not cute enough to stand outside a grocery store and sell candy bars.”

I saw her point – reluctantly. And she went on to sell more candy than any other student that year for her school.