I spent last Saturday morning sitting at a table in the Valley Fair
Macy’s shoe department distributing discount tickets
in exchange for $5 donations to Santa Maria Urban Ministry
(SMUM). My husband John Plocher and I
are on the SMUM Board of Directors. We also volunteer in SMUM’s after-school homework and
computer lab program for grade school kids.
Edy Unthank
(SMUM’s grant writer, also on the Board) had arranged for SMUM to be one of Macy’s
“Shop for a Cause” program
charities. Macy’s contacted the organizations which sold the most tickets and offered us
each a table next to one of their entry doors so that we could sell even more. I put my orange
and yellow Mexican blanket on the table, set out a big bowl of candy and SMUM brochures, set
up my laptop to loop John’s
SMUM video, and asked every shopper I could to accept a 25% discount ticket in exchange
for a $5 charity donation. In four hours, I collected 68 donations! Edy took the afternoon
shift and collected 40 more for a total of $540 (see photo below). We snooped one of the
other charity tables last Saturday and were told they had only sold $135 worth of tickets
all day – so SMUM did very well. Including the tickets we sold in advance, SMUM raised over
$1000 from this program.
Thanks, Macy’s!
Image Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson
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