A Dream Come True

So I just finished up drafting a letter to Chris Van Allsburg (The guy that wrote Polar Express and Jumanji). I went onto his website to see what he is involved with to add it into the letter. So it talks a bit about our charity and what we look to accomplish. A message I hoped to convey to him is that we just simply want some help but that we can also help him. He works with the Draw A Breath program out of Hasbro Children’s Hospital so this event could benefit both parties. It would also be wonderful for the schools, the children, and the parents. I did not specify in anyway what we wanted from him beyond to chat and draw on his knowledge of working with charities in the local area.  The letter says we want to use him as a resource in any way that he can help us. Who knows?

We can probably use a similar format to be sent to other potential speakers while tailoring it to the involvement of the other people. We’ll see what happens.

-SRD

Shaun, Sabrina, and I had a really productive meeting last night.  Our main goal was to talk about exactly which direction we would like to take this project.  As we have discussed, we feel we can have a better event than just a bowling event, especially considering all of the other bowling events that are going on at this time.  As was mentioned before, the Room to Dream Foundation is about the kids, so we feel that gearing our event towards the kids is a great idea.  This was one of the many fantastic suggestions that Dean Gemma had for us.

Sabrina has a contact that works with many elementary schools in the area, so we made a list of schools and have decided to contact those schools to see if they would be willing to work with us to have a fundraiser that not only benefits the Room to Dream, but also the children of the school.

Our conversation then shifted to really focus on what type of event we could have for the kids.  Shaun had heard that the author of the Polar Express (Chris Van Allsburg) lives in the Providence area.  We were thinking that if we could get in contact with him, he could maybe come and read a story and talk to the kids.  Although this may seem impossible, it’s worth a shot.  We went online to Chris’ website where there was a virtual mailbox, and we have decided to send him an email to see if he would be interested.  Although this would be fantastic, we are obviously not counting on him to say yes, so we decided to search for other authors and magicians, and artists in the area that would be interested in helping out with our event.  Basically what we are doing now is casting out as many lines to different contacts including authors, magicians, schools, etc, and hoping we get a bite!

We talked about the fact that if we could successfully hold an event for the kids, we are really tapping into a few different demographics and markets.  Our raffle will still be made up of college students (as well as others), and we could include more things in the raffle that would appeal to the parents of the children as well.  Sabrina had a good idea of selling Santa Letters to the parents to give to their kids.  She said she did something like that in High School and raised something like $5,000! 

Obviously, this idea still has a long way to go because we need to get a school that will work with us, and an author or entertainer for the kids. I just left a message with the Principal from Ashton Elementary School in Cumberland RI and I am waiting for her to return my call.  I will let you know how it goes! This is definitely our first choice due to the fact that they have a book fair going on during the week of the 17^th!  If we could get the author of the Polar Express, or any other author to come and read to the kids in conjunction with the book fair that would be perfect!!

The best news is that we now have a meeting set up to meet with my dad (Bill Hughes) and Stefan Nathanson on Wednesday of next week.  We hope that our plan is clearer by that meeting, and we know that they will have some great suggestions on how we can improve our event.

After the meeting with Dean Gemma one of the things he had mentioned was the Make-a-Wish program in Rhode Island. Apparently the RI chapter has had some issues recently with the national organization. They got in trouble for the compensation of its head. It was deemed to be excessive and that they had not fully disclosed that fact. For this reason the national organization was looking to pull their charter and cut funding. Not to take advantage of another’s misfortune but we thought about contacting them to see if they had any ideas to help us or we could do aynthing to help them. I went on the website to check out events they currently had planned. We figure given their desire to help children and the similarities between our and their organization it may be able to work out. We’ll see

Hey Guys,

This blog is mainly just to give a quick update about the meeting we are planning on having with my dad and Stefan Nathanson (the founder of Room to Dream).  We have been saying that we were waiting for Stefan to get back to us, and he finally did!  He has been extremely busy which is perfectly understandable given that he is a lawyer, a father, and the founder of a charity organization! (pretty impressive). 

Anyways, he said that his schedule has calmed down a bit and that he now has more time to meet with us.  The soonest he said he could meet is next week so I sent him and my dad an email this morning with times that all Shaun, Sabrina, and I are free, and we are just working on scheduling issues right now.  I will have more to add about this soon.

Our team is starting to get a little nervous just because we only have a few weeks left, and we haven’t completely decided what event we are going to have!  However, we know it will come together.  I think that we are definitely creating a sense of urgency right now, so the only option left is to produce!  As we are getting closer and closer to the deadline I can’t help but think about the reading of the team that fed the homeless in one weekend.  They thought it was impossible, but they eventually accomplished their goal.  Right now, I am starting to feel like this thing is never going to come together, but I trust my group, and I also trust that in the end we will have a fantastic event.  It is just a little bit chaotic right now (which is good!).

Yesterday Jeff and I had an extremely productive meeting with Dean Gemma.  Going into the meeting we basically knew that we wanted to gear our fundraiser in a different direction.  By the end of the meeting, Dean Gemma’s suggestions had completely swayed us.  If we want to achieve our goals we need to do something more community oriented, and ultimately we must involve children and parents who are naturally more inclined to our cause.  At this point, the bowling idea became our plan b, and we were ready to experiment with different ideas.

I see our group touching on some of the behaviors that Ricardo at Semco described in tonight’s reading.  The three of us are adapting to a barrier that arose, and although switching our fundraiser plans, disrupted our equilibrium and created chaos, we got some wonderful, new and fresh ideas from Dean Gemma.  The suggestions that the Dean provided us with were more natural in relation to our cause.  He opened up a floodgate of possibilities.  However, the possibilities are creating a tremendous sense of urgency.  I am eager to meet with my group tomorrow, because there is so much we need to do in order to execute these ideas.

Suggestions from Dean Gemma:
1.)    Contact the PR at Hasbro Children’s Hospital- look into their sponsors
2.)    Contact the Ronald McDonald House
3.)    Look within school systems for a child who may be chronically ill and put a face to your cause.  The community will surely unite to help this individual. **(In my opinion, the best of his suggestions)
4.)    Partner with organizations on campus who could give us leads into the community
5.)    Contact Tim Horton’s, CVS, Rite Aid, and Supermarkets
6.)    Parishes
7.)    Look into Make a Wish Foundation in RI. President of RI chapter was recently fired and there may be projects they didn’t get to finish that we could take on.

After class on Monday, the three of us briefly spoke about what Dean Gemma had suggested, and decided that we would try and research local schools and such in the area so that  we would have some material at the meeting.

Tomorrow Jeff, Shaun and I will be meeting to discuss these suggestions further and exchange whatever research we have been able to do the past few days.

I promise they will get shorter!!! There has just been so much going on in the last few days.  I know the long length of the blogs make it difficult to want to read but I can assure you there is some good info. in there!

Have a good weekeend everyone!

At work yesterday Kelly presented me with two signed official Doug Flutie pictures.  FINALLY! One picture is from his days at Boston College and the other is from his time with the Patriots.  I called Jeff on my ride home from work, and we both agreed that this was a breakthrough in our project.  We finally know what we are working with. When I got home that evening, I finished reading our assignment in Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.  The reading pointed out the importance of a target audience.  At this point I said to myself, ‘okay, we have the Flutie memorabilia, but who will want this?’  This is a topic our group has been grappling with for some time now.  Thinking back on Shaun’s idea of potentially targeting a high school audience, I wondered whether or not this demographic would be willing to pay money to win this merchandise?  This seems to be a fundamental question that will involve several factors.  One, what type of event are we going to hold, and two, who will we target?  The answers to both of these questions are dependent on one another.  Now more than ever I am extremely anxious to meet with Stefan and get some ideas flowing.

As Jeff mentioned in an email he recently sent out, the progress we made in class on Wednesday was incredible.  It was a breath of fresh air.  There was no awkward tension, and the discussion had a fluidity that we haven’t seen until now.  Although I was amazed with our progress, I am further in awe at the connections being made with the other class.  The blogs and wikis are linking us in ways I have never experienced before.  The two classes are sharing knowledge, and the information is surprisingly useful.  At the beginning phases of our project, my group utilized search engines such as Google in hopes for sparking some ideas for our project.  We came up short almost every time.  No matter how much we tried to narrow or search, we just couldn’t seem to find the information we were hoping for.  Many of the websites required a subscription fee, or simply did not address the pressing concerns people usually have while trying to host a fundraiser. The blogs however provided all of the information we were looking for and then some.  After reading through some of the posts, I was actually upset with myself for not having read sooner.  We could have avoided so much frustration! By reading the blogs I could relate to the problems, questions, breakthroughs etc. that others were having.  I got ideas from these blogs that I would never have come up with on my own.  Wikinomics nailed it when they demonstrated the success that is born from an open source system.  No one has all the answers, but together, our collective knowledge is powerful.

As I mentioned in written response 9, PC Youth Outreach has been a model for our classes.  They are right on task and their strategies have been admirable.  My group has been thinking a lot about getting more sponsors involved in our project, and I have unknowingly been dedicating a lot of my time to figuring out how we can go about this.  As I was sitting in Human Resource Management on Thursday, a class taught by Dean Gemma, I remembered that I had recently attended a wonderful event his foundation put on at Water Fire.  I feel bad for admitting this, but instead of paying attention to his lecture, my mind began to wander, and I realized how resourceful Dean Gemma actually is.  The network of contacts that man must have actually blew my mind.  Simultaneously, I remember Tom mentioning how one of his students had volunteered at the Gloria Gemma event, and sponsors were practically throwing themselves at her.  I was so excited with this breakthrough that I barely got through class.  Dean Gemma had barely concluded class, and I was already at his podium.  Jeff happens to also be in that class and in some sick, inexplicable way, knew what I was getting at.  Jeff and I then briefly explained our community partner to Dean Gemma, and asked if he would be willing to sit down with us and provide us with some ideas and contacts.  Dean Gemma was inclined to the idea and told us to make an appointment with his secretary.  Jeff and I wasted no time and went down to the Dean’s office right after class.  We have a meeting to chat with Dean Gemma on Monday before class!

Last thing, a new student was added to my internship course.  Her name is Briana and I actually lived in the same building as her both freshman and sophomore year.  Briana told us that her internship is with Lupos.  Lupos as most of you know is a small entertainment venue in downtown Providence.  I haven’t spoken to Briana yet, but I am going to contact her tomorrow and see if there are any avenues that my group could explore with Lupos.  I am very excited about the idea.  I will keep you updated : )

Hey everyone,

Our group really wants to try to get involved with some of the organization’s activities, and being part of one of the projects would be a great opportunity.  We really think that the more we get involved, the more passionate we will be about the project, which will ultimately lead to a wonderful event.  The other day I heard that the Room to Dream Foundation was doing a project in Boston, so I asked my father about it to try to find out some more details. 

Bad News:

Unfortunately, he said that they already had almost double the amount of volunteers they needed.  Since their projects really aren’t that big, if there are too many people there, things can get really hectic.  So the bad news is that we will not be able to go this weekend, however my dad said he would let us know as soon as another project comes up (which should be soon) and we will be able to go!

Good News:

Stefan (the founder of Room to Dream) has been extremely busy and has not been able to get back to us yet.  However, we should be hearing from him in the next couple of days.  He would like to set up a meeting next week with us and my dad (one of our sponsors from Shawmut Design and Construction) to really just talk about our project and get any ideas they have.  It will be really nice to get everyone “in the room” and just throw around ideas, as we are still open to changing our event.