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Home > About Us > Corporate Citizenship > | |||||||
| A Pie in the Face for Charity October 2010
It started with a simple idea—organizing a food drive for a local charity in Colorado Springs. Drawing on the deeply engrained tradition of community involvement at MITRE's site in Colorado Springs, it soon turned into a months-long, all-out campaign. When Karen Fox and Jackie LaForge learned that Care and Share, a local food bank, was sponsoring a campaign to end summer hunger for children, they knew they wanted to get involved. Although free meals are provided for students during the school year, a real need exists for food during the summer months when children are out of school. Fox, technical project support, and LaForge, office administrator, had both led previous fundraising efforts at their Colorado site. "We knew we wanted to organize the food drive, but the challenge was how to keep it going all summer long. The campaign lasted from June to September, so we wanted to do extra things to keep up the momentum," said Fox. That's when they consulted John Derby, Space and Information Operation (IO) Innovations department head. When serving in the military, he had participated in pie-throwing contests and offered up some rules of engagement and helpful suggestions to encourage site participation. Thus, an elaborate plan was hatched. When an employee donated food or money toward the drive, they could also apply their donation "pounds" ($1.00 = 10 pounds of food) as votes toward a pie in the face of a co-worker of their choice. A "Care & Share" barrel was placed in the lobby, along with a scale to weigh food donations, and a large "thermometer" sign to track how much money was raised and who was in the lead. Alicia Wunn, site receptionist, tracked the "pounds" of food as well as the monetary donations and sent out regular updates on the contest. Along the way, incentives were added. Two $25 gift cards to local restaurants were handed out in a participant drawing at the end of July and August. The team also hosted an ice cream social as a way to thank everyone for contributing. And how did they pay for the ice cream social? "Well, we just held a bake sale, of course!" said LaForge. The plan was a hit—nearly everyone at the site got involved. Staff started campaigning to get more of their co-workers involved. As the summer went on, groups plotted together to contribute a big donation for a specific individual at the top of the "pie-throwing" list. Some even cast their votes on those they knew would outbid them so they would move further down the list to avoid a pie. Wunn kept the troops updated with regular up-to-the-minute reports on the bidding wars. Even customers waiting in the lobby joined in, making contributions after witnessing the enthusiasm of the pie contest bidding wars. "The bidding went down to the wire," says Wunn. "People were changing places every minute. I didn't know who was going to make it." When bidding finally closed on August 31, the top five names were announced. Each "winner" received a pie in the face at the ice cream social in late September. In the end, the site collected $1,645 and 423 pounds of food for the Care & Share food bank. "Supporting the Colorado Springs food bank was a great initiative for everyone across the site, and having the pie throwing—or, in my case, receiving—as part of the event provided a morale booster to the site and incentivized a lot of participation," says Norman. "As you can see from the success we had with food and money collection and especially everyone's attendance at the pie events." —by Wendy Swirnoff Page last updated: November 5, 2010 | Top of page |
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