We recently hosted a fund-raiser for a youth organization at Chick Fil-A. I LOVE Chick Fil-A! There is no comparison between it and McDonalds. They are in totally different leagues!
The food is so fantastic, although pricey, and I love that they are closed on Sundays. They actually have it posted that they close on Sundays so that their employees can worship and be with their families. Of course it always seems that when I want to go to Chick fil-A, it is a Sunday! This sets up a stronger desire to go, because now I can't!!!! By heeding the Ten Commandments, this business is no doubt more successful than it would be by being open seven days a week. Imagine that.
Chik Fil-A allows groups that are doing something good for the community to host a Spirit Night at their restaurants.The group has a specific date and time and they advertise amongst themselves to have dinner there during that time period.Chick Fil-A will then donate 10% of the total receipts sold during that period, if folks mention your group name.We advertised to family and friends...
and some of them came out to join us!
They also offer their Spin-The-Wheel game to the group to use. For 50 cents, a spinner can win free food. Most of this food requires a purchase but the ice cream and brownies are free. The group is allowed to keep all the money they make from this game.
Another mother and myself were in charge of this fund-raiser.We worked hard on it, exchanging many e-mails to hash out the details.We brought our teen-age daughters to the initial meeting with the marketing director as this was their group and we wanted them involved. All of the teen-agers in our group volunteered to help during our Spirit Night.
At last the big night arrived. I invited my entire family and treated all those who could make it to a delicious chicken and waffle-fries dinner which included milkshakes! Sam and John helped out with the door opening and greeting and Miss J. helped folks to spin-the-wheel.
Sam was a big help in leading the cow around for safety and then got to wear the suit himself, making his night! Disappointingly, when all was said and done, we raised only 130 dollars for our group! I know that I spent more than a third of that on food! At first, I thought that maybe I had wasted my time and energy on organizing this kind of fund-raiser. It would have been so much easier to just write a check! Of course it would have been- but that misses the point!!! I have come to realize that we achieved our goal- our teen-agers worked together to do their own fund-raising. Sometimes that can be a slow process.
It also shows that Chick Fil-A does have a very successful business model! I know that we brought in customers, just not enough to make a huge difference when you are talking only 10%. At Spirit Night, our family enjoyed a good dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, and our teen-agers increased their team spirit by working together to pull this off.
