By Marissa Kinney, Vice-President of Leadership Development

This year’s state service project is the Children’s Trust Fund of Michigan. The primary purpose of the Children’s Trust Fund is to protect Michigan’s children through child abuse prevention and neglect. A brochure regarding the organization is available by clicking here.

For the 2012-2013 school year, we are asking local secondary and postsecondary chapters to order pinwheels and lapel pins from Michigan BPA in order to sell them in your communities. These pinwheels and pins are a way of showing your support of preventing child abuse and neglect throughout our state. In 2008, statistics show that more than 60% of children ages 17 and under were victims of abuse. Buying a pin/pinwheel shows support against this abuse and will help in the efforts of raising money for families in need. To ensure your active participation in this year’s project, the following are some ideas that will help you when trying to sell your pins and pinwheels.

First, start at your school. Set up a table during lunch and get your classmates interested. Offer incentives to encourage students to buy pins and pinwheels. These incentives don’t have to be anything extravagant, just something simple that will recognize them for participating. When students buy pins/pinwheels, have them write their name on a special recognition wall that’s posted in your school for everyone to see. If you want to take this further, you could offer a higher incentive to the person that buys the most items or donates the most amount of money.

Another simple idea would be setting up a table near the entrance or concession stand during sporting events. By doing so, this will expose people in your community to this fundraiser and will allow them to participate. Not only does this expose people in your own community, it will give people from the other schools an opportunity to learn about the Children’s Trust Fund and participate as well. If a few BPA members each took a different sporting event, you could reach your goal very quickly. Setting up a table at sporting events would not take a lot of planning or equipment. This is something quick you could do to raise a few extra dollars.

Due to the fact that our state service project falls in the line of many holidays, this gives you a perfect opportunity to sell them to your whole school! During the holidays you could set up an order form for students to order pins/pinwheels for other students. This would be a great opportunity to surprise your friends and give them something new to play with! Also pins would be a nice touch to other gifts you may be giving. Another plus to doing this during the holidays would be these make great decorations! Decorate your home, Christmas trees, or even your school!

Finally, ask local businesses to sell them for you. Have them set up a system where they ask customers if they would like to make a donation to the Children’s Trust Fund of Michigan. People who make donations could choose between a pin or pinwheel to keep! All of these ideas are quick and simple so you can get selling these items today!

To get started, request pins and pinwheels to be sent to your chapter by completing the Children's Trust Fund State Service Project Form. The school with the greatest participation will receive special recognition at our state leadership conference in March. Start your project today, especially while people are in a giving spirit during the holiday season!