Halloween-O-Gram Sale

Chapter: Penn State University

Amount Raised: $150

Dates: 10 a.m.–5 p.m, Oct. 27–29, 2009

Planning
Candygram sales for our Chapter take about a month to plan and implement.

Three Weeks Prior

• Choose dates and times for the event.
• Reserve tables at locations throughout campus.
• Choose an organization to donate a portion of the proceeds.
• Create a news release to send to local campus newspapers and blogs about event.
• Contact local businesses to collect donations for gift baskets.

Two Weeks Prior

• Purchase candy and bags (in bulk) at Sam’s Club or Costco.
• Create flyers and post them throughout campus.
• Being a sign-up sheet for members to sign up for shifts.
• Create a Facebook Event and send to all friends and members.

One Week Prior

• Confirm table reservations.
• Bag the candy and organize how many bags to sell each day and in each location.
• Create a final contact listing of all members who signed up for the event.
• Send the sign-up sheet document to members to verify time slots.

At the Event

• Be readily available both before, during, and after the event.
• Drop off all candy, petty cash, and other supplies for event.
• Designate someone to pick up the remainder of the supplies and return them to your Chapter PRSSA office.
• Take photos during the event for documentation.
• Send Facebook wall posts and tweets to promote the event.

After

• Send any follow-ups or thank-you letters to any donations.
• Create a follow-up news release announcing the total amount fundraised.
• Document the event, including details, amounts raised, contact lists, etc.

Staffing
Candygram Sales typically request two people per table per hour. One person can do it alone, but in case something would happen, it is better to have an extra Chapter member. Chapters should also plan on having one member drop off all supplies at the beginning of each sale and one member pick up the remainder of the supplies after the sale ends.

Description
As a basis of our suggested timelime, Chapter members began planning the Halloween-O-Gram Sale at the beginning of October. For Penn State’s event, an event planning co-chair reserved the table locations in two popular dining commons. Around this time, the Chapter contacted UNICEF to arrange a joint fundraising effort. Proceeds of our Halloween-O-Gram Sale benefitted UNICEF.

Members in our event planning committee began writing pitch letters and contacting local businesses to donate gift cards and other materials for the event. Two gift baskets were eventually constructed and the baskets encouraged students to sign up for the raffle, buy candygrams and learn more about PRSSA and UNICEF.

Additionally, the Chapter’s event planning chairs worked with members to write press releases the Halloween-O-Gram Sale as well as a new fact sheet about the Penn State Chapter. News releases were sent to local media, including The Daily Collegian, OnwardState, and StateCollege.com. Members also had the opportunity to create fliers to be posted throughout campus. These fliers were featured on orange paper to go along with the theme of Halloween.

During committee meetings, members would sign-up for time slots for the sale. A GoogleDoc was created and shared with members to allow easy access and viewing of all names, emails, and phone numbers of members. A few days before the event, the event planning chairs confirmed our table reservations to sell the candygrams. Members also created a Facebook Event and sent it to friends at Penn State.

The week before the event, members met to divide the candy into Halloween Baggies bought from Wal-Mart. At the time, each member brought in a bag of candy to defer the costs of the event. About 150 bags were created and divided into three separate piles. Each of those piles were divided in half to represent each location. Therefore, we had six separate candy piles – one for each day, in each location.

The bags were delivered each day to each location. Students were able to purchase one bag of candy for $1. Students also had the opportunity to donate $1 to UNICEF and be entered to win a gift basket with gift cards, clothing, and other goodies from local businesses. After each day, a designated member had to pick up the remaining candy and petty cash and take it to the PRSSA office.

After the full three-day event had ended, members wrote thank-you letter to businesses who donated to our gift basket. It total, $140.49 was raised. The Chapter donated roughly $75 to UNICEF and the remained will be used to send members to National events.