Well, we have had a very busy month! First of all, our master business application has been processed and approved and we are now licensed in the great state of Washington! Next we will be filing with the Secretary of State's Charity Program.
As for the jelly jar pies.....they now have become the jelly jar CAKES! lol The half pint jars were a little too deep to fit the crust into and get it uniformly along the bottoms. We have decided to switch to cakes, which will not only be alot easier to make, but will also be less expensive, as one box of cake mix will fill about 6 jars. While I am still open to trying the pies again next year...we will most likely use quarter pint jars instead. We had a great meeting on the 21st - and met 3 new volunteers! We finalized the serving room setup, and decided to also have a kitchen helper' who will be in charge of bringing food from the kitchen to the serving area as it is prepared. We also discussed the donation from the Marion Grange, and have decided that we will get a bank account and save the funds for Christmas gift cards for all of the kids attending the brunch. However, we cannot finalize that plan until we have all needed ingredients and materials accounted for. So far, we have only received rejection letters from the companies that we requested food donations from. Because of this, we are discussing possible alternate forms of obtaining our donations....such as setting up a table at Walmart and handing out ingredient lists to customers as they enter the store. Value Village also has suggested that we may be able to set up a donation box at their store - but we have to determine if it is a conflict of interest, since a board member works there. We are actively looking into those possibilities. We have found the baskets that we would like to use for our take-home gifts at DollarTree. They are about 8x9 inches and are in red and green for only $1 each. Our VP and I will go to DollarTree this weekend to see if they are avaiable in-store yet - as we have only seen them listed online. We will also be adding two new dates to our meetings in November and December - to accomodate decoration making and to ensure that everything is finished before the event. So far we have added Saturday, November 27th and December 23rd at 6pm to meet at the Buckley library. Since the library will not let us schedule more than two days a month - we will be scheduling the other two meetings at the Bonney Lake library. I have also contacted Foothills and Wilkeson Elementary schools about recruiting families to attend the brunch. Those schools will be putting our contact information into the November newsletters which will go out in the beginning of the month. We hope to be hearing from many families in the next few weeks and
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We have alot to discuss at this month's meeting this thursday! To start things off.....the Marion Grange has given a cash donation of $200 to help with the cost of our Christmas Brunch, as well as given us four new volunteers! Thanks so much to Stacy Nicoletta, Marion Grange Secretary, for securing both the hall and the donation for us!
I have filed our master business application with the state and should hear something by the time of our meeting. We have also changed our registered agent to Carol Yeaman, our Secretary-Treasurer, and will be signing and mailing the form to update the Secretary of State on thursday. We have our first dozen half pint jelly jars, and I am currently trying out recipes for our apple pies. I will bring a sample to the meeting on thursday so everyone can see how they will look. I have drawn 48 circles on some red gingham fabric, and bundled them up in sets of 12, for students to earn credit by cutting them out for us. So far we have 3 student volunteers, but I'm hoping for more to show up at this week's meeting. I have four bundles made up so far - but we will need to double that to have enough for all of the pies, and even more if we do cakes also. I also found some christmas-themed baskets to use for the take-home gifts at DollarTree. They are about 8x9" and are red and green for $1 each. Hopefully I will be able to grab some next saturday while we are out servicing our candy route. I've listed several different items for sale on our website, with 100% of all profits going to fund our Brunch. There is a baseball cap, coffee mug, and t-shirts all with the Our Shared Hopes logo and ranging in price from $10.00 to $20.00 for a combo. These are in addition to our candy Holiday Wreaths listed for $42.00 each. Shipping is included in all prices. At this week's meeting, we will discuss the kitchen crew's timing and setup, and start sorting volunteer's into specific positions. We would like to rotate shifts, to keep the volunteer's time to a minimum. To do this we would need at least 16 volunteers for the serving committee, including door monitor. Right now we fall quite short of that, but I'm sure that we will pick up more volunteers the closer we actually get to Christmas. We had a great meeting on the 16th! The menu has been finalized, with the exception of a baked hashbrown recipe and we are still undecided on the sausages. The menu will include French Toast, a Christmas Breakfast Casserole (made with eggs, cheese and bacon), hashbrowns and fresh fruit. For substitutions, we will offer pancakes, biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs and a 'Piggy Bake' (made with sausage and corn bread). We will also have milk, orange and apple juice, coffee and tea.
We met two new volunteers at this month's meeting! A Senior at White River joined the group along with her mom! So great to know that the word is getting out to the high school students. Hopefully we will be overcome with Juniors and Seniors at the meeting on October 21st!. I brought up the idea of baked goods in jelly jars for take-home gifts...and it's a go! Now all we need to do is come up with at least 100 half pint and 25-50 pint sized canning jars. I am thinking of offering the students extra credit in return for donated jars. One way or another, we have to obtain our supplies, and the cheaper the better. It would be wonderful if we could get all of the needed jars donated! Donation letters have finally been successfully printed and are going out tomorrow. I know how close we are cutting it, so I have begun to buy supplies bit by bit with each trip to the grocery store. Unfortunately, the bulk of the items needed are perishable and cannot be obtained ahead of time. But if the donations are not secured, we will handle it and move forward. We have already planned for the worst case scenario....although we hope that we will not have to go that route. All of us have families, and I'm really hoping to keep the out-of-pocket expenses to an extreme minimum. So, now it's officially only 3 months to go. So much to do, and so little time! Well, I've finally gotten settled after the move and have my internet connection again. =) I've been busy getting ready for the meeting this thursday, as well as working on our sponsorship requests. I've also had to hold off, twice now, on mailing off the donation request letters. While everything looks wonderful in Word, the printed piece from FedEx is cut off.....again. Very frustrating. I have completed revising them for the third time, and hope to get them printed and in the mail on thursday.
Better news - I have stumbled across the most perfect Christmas take-home gift idea for the bread baskets: Pies and cakes baked inside of jelly jars! My idea is to use half-pint canning jars to make individual pies for each family member - and then a larger pint-size jar for a cake to be shared. We can decorate the jars and stash them under the bread as special treats in the take-home baskets I think it will be a nice touch - and the jars would be reusable. We can include tips that I found online for ideas on reusing. This also would eliminate the possibility that the recipients cannot prepare the dish, as with my 'Brownie Mix in a Jar' idea. This way, all that is needed is a fork and a can opener. The jars will also store for about a year if they are sealed. =). I was mistaken. We are actually getting help from both the Junior and the Senior classes from White River! So excited to see just how many volunteers we might get from this partnership! We have sent a flyer to the school to be distributed among the students. We've also updated this website to include a page to welcome them and tell them a little bit about what they will be doing.
The donation request letters are going into the mail on Tuesday, as Monday is Labor Day. All mailed responses will be sent to our Secretary-Treasurer, Carol - although I hope to follow up with each contact by phone about a week after mailing. I will also ask our Secretary to be our Registered Agent at our September 16th meeting. My new address is unsecure, and being as she is the secretary, it makes sense to have her handle incoming mail. We will also discuss getting the mailbox at the UPS store for a permanent address. I am moving this weekend, and will be without internet for at least 3-5 days. However, I have downloaded several samples of proposals, cover letters, letters of inquiry, letters of intent,and proposal budgets to give myself a resource to draw from while writing our Fiscal Sponsorship proposals. Definitely have enough to keep me busy! I got a call this morning from the high school. We have the approval to recruit the junior class to help with our Christmas Brunch. The juniors will be working towards credit for their Senior Project. We will provide many different opportunities for them to volunteer, such as on the serving, decorating or clean-up committees. There will also be two days where we will be collecting branches and making swags for those who cannot volunteer during the actual holidays.
I am making up a flyer to be distributed tomorrow at the high school. We are inviting all interested to join us at our September 16th meeting. I have finished the request letters and finally have them ready for printing. I'm going to print them at FedEx because I love their printer, and they have different kinds of paper to choose from. Since these will not be printed on letterhead, but rather include it...I want them to look as professional as possible. I will get them printed out tomorrow. I talked to our Secretary-Treasurer, and we have now set it up to use her address to receive any mail for the organization, so we are all set. We know that this is all very late in the year for donations, but we are prepared to handle the worst-case scenario of zero donations. Luckily, this event can be pulled off nicely for under $200, we would just have to cut back on some extras, but we are prepared to chip in and cover the costs if necessary.
As for the recipe books, the collection of recipes has been far and few between. Someone mentioned that I do not need to have personal recipes, but can collect them from other recipe books/online collections. So I checked the Morris Press Cookbooks website....and sure enough. It's only copyright infringment if you were to copy the source in it's entirety. So we will definitely have our cookbook ready for publishing in time for the holidays! Now to get busy going through my many, many cookbooks and recipe collections! However, I will still offer the incentive shown on our home page for anyone who personally submits 10 recipes. =) I designed a template to use as our letterhead, and have created drafts for all board members. I have all of the donation letters set up with the new letterhead and ready to be printed. Still have to decide if I'm going to get a PO Box to accept mail at, or if it might be possible for Carol to receive everything. Should know tomorrow for sure. Then it's simply a matter of mailing off the letters and folllowing up with phone calls the next week.
Next is to finalize the fiscal sponsorship request letters and to get them ready for mailing. I will also be contacting the White River High School's social worker to request that Juniors be allowed to participate in the Brunch for their Senior project. Lots and lots to do this next month. Time is drawing very short, and the work isn't going to be easy, but we know this is going to be a wonderful event! I've been working on designing a new company letterhead. I still have 10 sheets that I ordered through Vistaprint, but I need alot more and don't see the point in paying any more when I can design and print them myself.
Carol, our Secretary-Treasurer, will be back from vacation tomorrow. I need to contact her to see how we want to handle the donation letter replies. Since she is the secretary, it makes sense to use her address. As long as the post office doesn't mind. lol The peppermint patty machine that I had traded for lables arrived broken and does not vend very well - so I'm working on exchanging it for another triple-head candy machine. One is on it's way now - but I'm hoping for another. Tanning salons do wonderful - and the apartment complex had kiddies lining up with their quarters before we even left. So I'm going to try for more of those types of locations for the next two. We have only serviced the tanning salon once, and it is already turning a profit. Also, I have made apprx. $50 in profit through my eBay sales - and have made the first deposit of 10% to Our Shared Hopes today. I know it's not much, but it's a start. It can only grow from here. We should have another deposit next Saturday, when we service the vending route. Well, I think I've got a good version to start with. I published it in a note on my Facebook page, and asked for feedback from friends, before hammering out a final draft - but I'm almost satisfied with it. Made up a bunch of letters, using it for a template, all personalized and addressed to companies such as Mrs. Butterworth's.
For that one, I only requested 5 bottles of syrup. We estimated needing about a total of 10, but I want to keep our requests small. There is always the possibility that they will donate more. Since there are several companies that might donate the same items, our odds of having everything donated are increased with every contact. I will try to finalize the draft tomorrow and get them printed and ready for mailing. But, I also need to get on the Fiscal Sponsorship requests......so definitely lots to do. .....enough for tonight, tho. ;-) |
AuthorNikki Thurston Archives
November 2023
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