2 May 2009, Singapore

Salesforce.com volunteers had some fun selling chocolates and nuts at the Assisi Fun Day Fair 2009 and raised funds to support Assisi Hospice. Kireina Tay, Senior Recruiter - Employee Success, shares her story about the day. 

Pre-Event

 The fun for the fair to raise funds for Assisi Hospice, an outreach service of Mount Alvernia Hospital for the continuing care of patients with cancer and other life-limiting illnesses, began before the actual day of the event.

Salesforce volunteers diligently baked, mixed and packed healthy nuts and raisins in little bags and cups. Labels with the salesforce.com logo were printed for the bags and cups, carefully stuck on the containers and packed into gigantic fedex boxes. Absolutely no pictures were taken at this particular juncture as the volunteers "quality checked" the packaging (read: munched their way thru a few bags that were damaged from the over-enthusiastic heat-sealing process).

The evening before the fun fair was due to start, some volunteers along with their partners headed off to the site to prepare for the event. Clambering onto ladder, finding just the right spot for our Chocolates and Nuts sign, making sure that our price list was clearly visible; and of course making sure that nobody fell off the ladder was of the utmost importance!

The Event

The day of the Fun Fair dawned bright and sunny. The volunteers turned up to finish the preparation; they arranged, stacked and displayed the merchandise to the best advantage, then proceeded to pose behind the table waiting for the crowd to descend. The other volunteers decided that we may have better luck attracting positive attention if we circulated the fair grounds. The volunteers prepared makeshift trays (yes, we are recycling our office supplies) and sent our wonderfully, cheerful SRs, Fay and Jie into the crowd.

What a winning sales strategy it was! The crowd that flooded into the fair was showed their support by clearing more than half our stock before the morning was over! The volunteers managed to clear out our entire stock of chocolates and nuts and we even managed to help other volunteers sell their wares! The total amount raised that day? S$4,687. YIPPPEEEE!!! Double the amount raised last  year!

It was an awesome team effort! We are all looking forward to next year's fund raising event, getting ready to meet the challenge of raising even more money to support more patients!