Final Post for November

This has definitely been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences we have had in the College of Business. We started off the semester with a goal to reach $200 in profit, and we have exceeded our goal by almost $60, reaching a total of $259 in profit and over $300 in revenue. We spent countless hours baking chocolate chip cookies this semester... We baked and sold over 1,200 cookies so far.

This experience has most certainly enlightened our perception on the entrepreneurial process. We realized that we needed to commit ourselves to this business if we wanted to reach our profit goal, and that's exactly what we did. We had to schedule several bake sales in Showker Lobby, and set aside time during the weekdays to bake cookies for several hours. We dedicated ourselves to this business because we felt passionate about our cause... giving people the opportunity to support a notable charity of their choice, while receiving a bundle of delicious cookies in return for their support. We did have to go through some paperwork and talk to a few administrators before we actually began selling, but we learned that this was a vital (and necessary) step if we wanted to sell our cookies, and to make it possible to allow our business to grow.

We definitely learned a few things during our short-lived entrepreneurial lives this fall. During our first bake sale, we quickly realized that we set the price for a bundle of 3 chocolate chip cookies too high. We originally priced them for $1.75, but we changed it to just $1 afterwards. Also, since we were preparing the cookies from scratch, it took us several attempts to perfect the baking process... we had quite a few burned batches when we started! One of the biggest take-aways we learned from this business project is the advantage of networking. For example, Campus Cookies donated over 60 free cookies for our cause. We also sold over 700 cookies to the West Point Military Academy in New York. These opportunities helped us tremendously in reaching our profit goal.

Big Thanks to Campus Cookies!

Last week, I visited the 'Campus Cookies' store on South Main Street to pick-up the cookies that Scott was donating to 'Cookies for a Cause.' When I arrived at the store, Scott was taking the freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies out of his mini ovens... The kitchen smelled delicious! Scott generously donated over 60 cookies. In return, 'Cookies for a Cause' agreed to advertise the cookies as 'Campus Cookies.'

.

With the end-of-the-semester approaching, it was difficult for our team to agree on a time for a bake sale since we all have such full schedules. As a result, we decided to divide the donated cookies between the three of us and to sell them on our own to friends, family, neighbors, etc. We made sure that with each sale we told the customer that we were selling 'Campus Cookies,' and needless to say, every customer loved them!

.

Since these cookies were donated to us, we do not have to take out any costs for these cookies. Thanks again Scott for your delicious cookies! We hope to work with you again sometime in the near future!

Joining Forces

Cookies for a Cause did not hold a bake sale this past week. However, the members of NutraBean approached us with the idea to sell our cookies with their vitamin-enhanced coffee. We offered them 14 cookie-bundles to sell during their coffee sale, and they sold 10 of the 14 cookie-bundles! The most popular sale supported the Skin Cancer Foundation. While we had initially worked out a deal with NutraBean that they would keep a percentage of the profits, they graciously forfeited this agreement and gave all of the profits back to Cookies for a Cause. Matt Connolly, a member of NutraBean, said that selling the cookies with the coffee "was a big hit and the two seemed to go well together." We hope to set up another deal with NutraBean in the near future!
. .
Also, Scott Davidson from Campus Cookies has contacted us and has offered to donate 100 or so cookies in exchange for advertising the cookies he donates as "Campus Cookies." We immediately accepted his offer! We're leaving it up to Scott to decide what type of cookies he would like to donate. We'll be picking the cookies up either this week, or the beginning of next week. We are hoping to have another bake sale, featuring the cookies from Campus Cookies, before Thanksgiving Break. We're very excited about this opportunity!
.
The Campus Cookies' signature logo is displayed to the right... we'll be featuring the same logo when selling their cookies!

Personal Triumph!

Don't get confused... I didn't climb a mountain, but I did wrap all the 700 or so cookies single handedly. It is a tedious process to cut all the ribbon (244), group the cookies into threes, and bundle them into seran wrap, which we all know from personal experience is not the easiest material to deal with. I will venture to say I don't want to wrap the cookies ever again... or at least by myself.

LARGE Cookie Order Helps Us Reach Our $200 Goal!

This past week, Cookies for a Cause was able to surpass its goal of $200 (in profit) thanks to the very LARGE order placed by dozens of Cadets attending West Point Military Academy in New York. A friend of Cookies for a Cause, Senior Cadet Jason D'Elosua was very interested in our business and wanted to lend his support by informing other students at his school about our cause. Thanks to his generous efforts, he was able to collect more than $250 in cookie orders and donations from fellow Cadets. Jason made a visit to James Madison University this weekend, which gave him the perfect opportunity to collect our freshly baked cookie bundles and take them back to school with him where he can distribute them to the Cadets who had placed an order with us.

We had to bake over 700 cookies in order to meet this order! We spent several days baking and preparing the bundles, which can be seen in the pictures posted below :) The most orders were placed for the Sean Kimerling Testicular Cancer Foundation, and the second most orders were placed for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

.

We'd like to give a HUGE thanks to Jason and all of the other West Point Cadets for their generous support.

.

We are currently deciding when we will be holding our next bake sale. We plan on having another one in the next couple of weeks. We are hoping to schedule a time slot on The Commons, instead of in Showker Lobby. As soon as we finalize the date and location of our bake sale, we will let you know!

.

.

.

Best Bake Sale Yet!

On Thursday the 22nd, ‘Cookies for a Cause’ hosted its third bake sale in Showker Lobby from 2 pm to 4 pm. We had a fairly steady stream of students and professors buying cookies throughout the afternoon. We have decided to sell our delicious cookie bundles for only $1. We’ve definitely seen an increase in sales since lowering the price from $1.75 to $1, so we will be staying with $1 sales. Surprisingly, our most popular cookie sale was Environmental Sustainability, for JMU Institute for Stewardship of the Natural World. The second-most supported cause was Testicular Cancer, for Sean Kimerling Testicular Cancer Foundation. We had a great time selling cookies this afternoon! We greatly appreciate everyones contribution, and their help in supporting these causes.

Bake Sale Round 2

Our second bake sale on Wednesday, October 14, was a success! We decided to lower our prices from $1.75 to $1.00 per bundle, and we definitely saw an increase in sales. We started selling cookies earlier in the day by first selling a few bundles of cookies in our business classes, and continued selling at our official bake sale at 1:30pm in Showker Lobby. We sold the most bundles supporting the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the American Heart Association.

Our next sale is Thursday, October 22, at 2:00pm in Showker Lobby. Stop by to support your favorite cause and enjoy some homemade cookies!

First Event

Cookies for a Cause had its first bake sale on Thursday! We were set up in Showker Lobby from 2pm to 5pm. We were selling three chocolate chip cookie bundles for $1.75 each. We received a lot of support and positive feedback from fellow students and COB Professors. Each bundle was wrapped and tied off with a different colored ribbon: pink, red, black, purple, and green. Almost every customer who came up to our table would immediately ask, “What’s with the different colored ribbons?” This gave us a great chance to explain to them what Cookies for a Cause is all about. Our most popular seller was the bundles of cookies that support the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Our second top seller was the cookies that support the Skin Cancer Foundation.

We received some constructive criticism from our customers, suggesting that we lower the price for each bundle, or keep the same price but sell 5 cookies in a bundle. We will definitely take their suggestions in to consideration for our next bake sale. Overall, our bake sale today was fairly successful, but we had hoped to sell a few more cookies. We are hoping that we will sell more cookies at our next bake sale because we’ll be selling in the middle of the week, and at an earlier time in the day, so hopefully more people will be passing through Showker Lobby at this time.

Our next bake sale is next Wednesday, October 14^th from 1:30 to 3:30 in Showker Lobby. Make sure to come by to support the Cause of your choice!

Baking

On Tuesday, October 6, I went to my parent's house to make cookies. My sister and I made three batches, and I came home with over 130 cookies. Some of the cookies from the first trays we baked ended up being classified as "R&D cookies"--wrong size, overdone, etc. I took the cookies to my apartment and wrapped three cookies in a piece of saran wrap and tied the baggies with different colored ribbons. Each different color represents the charity that baggie will support.

FAIL! My burnt cookies didn't look this bad, but everyone gets the point... my cookies were burnt badly. I made them late Friday night and had a million things going on at once. I wasn't paying attention and the picture to the left is the result of my neglect. I was supposed to sell the cookies at my sororities 5K on Saturday to raise money for breast cancer. I tried to sell the leftover cookies, but of course it was raining. Therefore, people were not interested in buying anything because they were only worried about finishing the race and getting out of the rain. The 5K was a great missed opportunity to sell our cookies! Hopefully we can make up for the lost sales somewhere else. There are two lessons I learned this weekend; don't let me bake the cookies, and sometimes things aren't going to work out the way I planned them too!

Ribbons

I couldn't go with Leigh and Amanda today to go shopping, but I did do some shopping of my own. I bought the material we are going to sell the cookies in, and I also bought the ribbons to tie the bags with. I bought pink, purple, red, and black which are the respective colors of our initial charities. I came across and idea that might be interesting for our new business to feature. We can have a suggestion box where people can recommend other causes that we could support during a certain month. For example, we could use a green ribbon one month and donate the money to JMU's Institute for Stewardship of the Natural World. It is only a thought, but we will see how our first sale goes.

Ingredient Shopping

Leigh and I went shopping at Wal-Mart Friday afternoon for ingredients for the cookies. We purchased flour, sugar, brown sugar, butter, eggs, and of course several bags of chocolate chips. We're planning on baking at my parents' house on Tuesday evening to prepare for our first sale this week. We'll be selling our cookies in Showker Lobby from 2 pm to 4:30 pm this Thursday, October 8th. I hope we got everything we need!

'About Me' Continued...

A.L.L. Inc. was created by three JMU College of Business students: Amanda Grace, Lindsey Oliver, and Leigh McVay. We're in the business of baking homemade chocolate chip cookies!

"Cookies for a Cause" is located in Harrisonburg, VA and we have already made arrangements to host our bake sales on JMU's campus. When you buy one of our delicious cookies, you have the option of choosing which cause you would like to support. Each cookie is pre-packaged and sealed with a colored ribbon. The color of the ribbon represents which cause you choose to support. The pink ribbon is for Breast Cancer, the red ribbon is for Heart Disease, the black ribbon is for Skin Cancer, the purple ribbon is for Testicular Cancer, and the green ribbon is for Environmental Sustainability. So if you decide to buy a cookie that is packaged with a pink ribbon, a percentage of your proceeds will be sent to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Each person who buys one of our homemade cookies can help make a difference!