Beal College Students Raise Money for Shaw House
Blast-Off to Summer Lunch-In Fundraiser

On Tuesday June 23rd Beal College’s Office Procedures class held a lunch fundraiser to benefit Shaw House. A festive lunch of Spanky’s pizza donated by Spanky’s; salads, casseroles, watermelon, chips, drinks and baked goods donated by Beal College’s staff and students, was consumed for a small donation to Shaw House.

Chris Betts, Program Manger, for from Shaw House’s Streetlight Outreach Program attended the fundraiser and talked about Shaw House services. He explained that the Streetlight Outreach Program connects runaway, homeless and at risk youth with programs that provide support, resources, basic needs assistance, and the tools to move them toward a positive future. He, as well as others, travel to towns and rural areas to provide these services and resources to reach out to street youths on their own turf.

This Beal College class of four student s organized and planned the fundraiser from scratch. They spent their first few weeks of classes deciding what kind of fundraiser to hold and who the fundraiser would benefit. Looking for a fundraiser that they could put together in a relatively short period of time, they decided to host a lunch. The following weeks were filled with budgeting, action planning, marketing planning, and requesting donations. At first the class was skeptical that they would be able to actually put on a fundraiser but as the event neared it seemed to all come together.

Figuring out who would benefit from their fundraiser took some time to figure out. The class discussed helping area youths and after some research chose Shaw House to be the recipient.

“This fundraiser was a great project learning experience by making the student think thru the process of planning a project and it gave everyone a sense of accomplishment,” said Melanie Israel, Business Program Director. “It also gives the students a chance to do something good for the community.” The students were exposed to community resources when searching for organization that help youth in the area.

Shaw House is an organization in Bangor, that benefits youth and young adults who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. They provide residential housing to the youth and efficiency apartments to the young adults. They also provide other support like shelter, food, clothing, supervision, counseling, health clinic, preventative programs and transitional housing. Much of their funding comes from MaineCare. With all of the government cuts, your support helps them while they face the decrease in support from the State and MaineCare.

The Beal College’s Office Procedures class would like to thank all that participated either by donating food or by purchasing lunch. It is with every one’s participation that this fundraiser was a huge success. We are proud to have raised a total of $153 that was donated directly to the Shaw House. Plus we donated food, drinks and other supplies to benefit Shaw House clients.

This project is an example of the hands-on approach to applying the skills learned in the class room to a real life project. Beal College’s Office Procedures class helps students to learn the skills needed to participate in an office setting. With this project the students learned how to apply skills like, writing memos, business letters, thank-you notes, copying, setting priorities, multi-tasking, project planning and project presentation.