For the past two weeks, the kitchen of community harvest has been jammed packed with students. The entire management 101 company, Community Lifestyle, has been volunteering here as part of the service sector of the company. Each management 101 company has to choose a service project to which all the profits of the company go and Community Lifestyle chose community harvest. The company's VP of finance volunteered for Community Harvest before and pitched the idea to the company. Casey Coffman said the entire company was behind the idea. "No other company has ever chosen Community Harvest before. It was exciting to do something new". After contacting Lynn to see what community harvest needed, the company agreed to try and buy us a new, and much needed freezer.
Yet the company wanted to do more than just buy the freezer. Casey explained that they wanted to make a lasting impact on community harvest, but not just on the kitchen, but on the people. They company wanted to meet and get to know the people they were serving. After much brainstorming and hard work, the company planned to bake bread for community harvest as well as volunteer helping with dinner for two weeks, all funded from a loan they took out that will hopefully be repaid by their sales.
Casey and the rest of the company's service sector was a little nervous about the baking bread day. They had to bake on a Friday afternoon and Bucknell students normally do not give up their Fridays. However, they had a great turn out and the company really enjoyed working together to pull off making dozens of loaves of bread. "It was a lot of fun and a really good experience," Casey comments. The next week they started to come to the Monday dinners. The first week they threw a Fall Festival. The company secured a ridiculous amount of apple donations from Dries Orchard, causing the kitchen to literally overflow with tasty fall apples. They also bought pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, and apple cider from Weis and decorated the dining hall with streamers and fall leaves. This week they are putting on a game night. So along with balloons, more streamers, and games, the company also bought amazing cupcakes and muffins to celebrate. But perhaps more importantly, the company continually brings a heart for others. Even just in two weeks of volunteering, each member of the company has relationships with the people here. "We did not want to be a ghost donor," Casey said."We wanted to get to know the people and have them get to know us." There is no question in the minds of the people here that these students care about them, not just throwing money to some service organization. Company C really gets it; they really get service-- its not just about the money; its about building relationships and sacrificing time for the joy of others.
Casey explained that the experience has been great for company bonding. Working together towards achieving a clear and common goal of helping a specific community has built strong purpose, trust and accountability between the members, a necessity for a successful company. In fact, their service together has created such a positive dynamic between the members and such a strong sense of purpose that the company was the only company to pull off a proposal and plan that passed on the first review.
In order to meet their goal, the company needs to pay off their expenses as well as make $520 in profit to pay for the new freezer. In order to do they need to sell 230 tanks at $15 each, and they have sold 185 tanks so far. The tanks are white and twitter themed, with 'Bucknell Lifestyle' on the front and a host of funny Bucknell traits on the back, all in the wonderful colors of blue and orange. The company is hoping to sell more than 230 tanks so that they can donate the extra money to help with weekly food expenses.
