Big Change Roundup for Kids
For the past five years, we have joined thousands of volunteers working alongside staff from Fletcher Allen Hospital and WOKO 98.9, to collect spare change as part of the Big Change Roundup to support Vermont Children’s Hospital at Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington. Money raised during the drive is used to support programs and services at our local Vermont Children’s Hospital to make a child’s stay as comfortable as possible and to ease the impact the hospitalization has on the child and their family.
In 2008, we joined in the Big Change Roundup and I can tell you it has had an amazing effect on our unit and the individual Scouts and families that have taken part in the effort. We felt strongly that a program of “kids helping kids” was something we wanted to implement and promote in our Pack, especially since it was our own hospital and we knew the money was going to benefit our local kids.
This is a voluntary effort undertaken by parents and kids within the Pack. No one is obligated to take part in this if they don't want to. This is a coin challenge. No one should feel pressured to contribute more than coins. The motto of the BCR is "Make a difference, one dime at a time."
Two important links for everyone so facts can be independently verified...
We approach our Pack effort for the BCR in several ways:
1) Group efforts - Over a five week period in February and March, we are scheduled at Jolley's in Jericho to do collections on Saturday mornings from 8am to 12noon. Boys will be collecting money from customers (inside the store) as a den. Your den leader will advise you of actual date. All money collected on these dates goes to our overall Pack donation on 3/10.
2) Collection bins - We will have approximately 6-8 cannisters in stores around Jericho/Underhill. If anyone wishes to have a collection bin to take to work etc, please let me know and I'll arrange to get one to you. All money collected in these cannisters will go towards our overall Pack donation on 3/10.
3) Media - We have had great support from WOKO 98.9 in the past few years to promote our Pack's effort. They have done several live remotes from various locations where we've gathered to collect money. You may hear me on the radio one morning or a radio spot by our Tigers promoting our efforts. I also use the opportunities to encourage other youth groups to take part and challenge other Packs to raise more than Pack 620. It's also a nice way to recognize Jolley's for their support of us.
4) Online donations - Just like last year, we have registered our Pack as a posse called "Cub Scout Pack 620." Scouts do not need to register individually as change bandits. They are already bandits within our posse. By doing this, our Posse can collect online donations. Here's how it works.
a) When you go to the BCR website
www.bigchangeroundup.org you will see a box on the right hand side entitled "Posse rank." Click on the "more" link and scroll to our posse name. When you click on our posse link, you will be brought to our Cub Scout Pack 620 home page for the BCR.
b) Anyone wishing to solicit online donations from other people can join our posse. The site allows you to send emails to everyone. It's real easy. By doing this, you can solicit donations under your name, but all donations will be credited to our Cub Scout Pack 620 posse total and will be added to our 3/10 collection total to determine our overall Pack contribution.
In the past five years, Pack 620 has been a leader in organized group efforts for the BCR and collected almost $14,000 for the hospital. We have gotten other Cub Scout Packs to join the effort with us and together collected over $50,000 for the hospital. We are committed to once again being a leader in this effort and promoting the concept of "kids helping kids" every chance we can.
A final point of clarification. None of the money collected during this effort supports Pack 620 or Cub Scouts in any manner. 100% of the money we raise goes to our local Vermont Children's Hospital in Burlington.
Finally, all donations are tax deductible. The Tax ID for Fletcher Allen Health Care and Vermont Children's Hospital is : 03-0219309.
If anyone has any other collection ideas, or any questions/comments about our efforts, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Dave