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what is “sunny’s spotlights”?
Sunny’s Spotlights is a corner where CNH recognizes the clubs and/or individuals that stand
out and go above and beyond in the areas of service and fundraising. Stay tuned for the next
issue to see if your school is featured!
Serv ic e: E l Ca m in o Colleg e
Jannette Alvarez
El Camino College
The LA Food Bank caters to shelters, schools, senior
homes, and many more locations. The work they do is
truly marvelous and being able to take part in this process is amazing.
On Monday morning, January 14 we went to our first
weekday service event. We had volunteered with the
LA Food Bank before and were use to the large volunteer groups, so we were curious on how the volunteer
process was on a weekday. There weren’t a lot of people, but we were very efficient.
We were placed in the freezer and separated different food items. It was interesting to learn that food last
much longer than the expiration date says. Food that
did not have both the nutrition facts and expiration
date had to be thrown away. We had to throw away
boxes of bread because it did not have nutritional facts,
although some of the food that had to be thrown away,
it was placed in separate bin to be turned to dog food.
So in reality nothing went to waste.
We were able to separate and sort five crates of food
between all the volunteers. The LA Food Bank is a service project that keeps you active for the whole day.
There was not a time where we did not have anything
to do, and after a while carrying all the milk and juice really wears a person down.
At the end of the project we were given a spoon that’s
also a pen, a ‘spen’ if you will. Volunteering at the LA
Food Bank always leaves us with a sense of accomplishment and achievement. I look forward to volunteering
there again soon.
Fu n d ra is in g: SF Sta te U n iv ers ity
Anna Fang
San Francisco State University
One of my proudest accomplishments this year
would have to be meeting all of our club’s District
Fundraising Initiative goals.
Back in March of last year when we were discussing
club goals, our board had an intense meeting where
we listed out all of our goals in a determined manner. During our color-coded, dry-erase marker goalmaking session we established what we wanted to
accomplish in terms of service, membership, leadership, etc.
Since I was treasurer, one of the goals I was most
nervous about was fundraising. In high school, I had
experience working on fundraisers that we do annually. But implementing and collaborating entirely new
fundraisers from the ground up was a completely
new concept to me.
Through trial and error I found that time is always of
the essence to any successful fundraiser. Out of the
various events I was involved in, the most successful
ones in terms of execution and profits were the fundraisers we planned weeks, if not months in advance.
During our most successful fundraising streak, we
sold boba drinks in two flavors to San Francisco State
students out in the quad for $3 apiece. We kept in
constant communication with our vendors, providing
them with orders, payments, and updates in order to
ensure smooth transactions. We learned that letting
our vendors know about our long-term fundraising
strategy helped them understand our needs and allowed them to help us meet our goals.
I’ve also learned from starting new fundraisers that
a spreadsheet with projected expenses and profits
never hurts. It can be invaluable when planning out
your fundraiser. In addition to overestimating expenses and underestimating gains to get your ballpark net
profit, the spreadsheet can also help you and the fundraising committee brainstorm and revise expenses
to see where you can cut unnecessary items or even
where you can get those expenses for free.
There are many things I have learned through my
adventures in fundraising and I believe that this is the
true accomplishment, meeting the goals was just the
icing on top.