Lessons Learned

Author's Note: This is a piece reflecting on my experience with having a doughnut sale.  It shows my struggles.  It shows my successes.  If you are ever planning a fundraiser, I suggest reading this so that you can see what I struggled with, and make sure that you don't.
Some people think that selling doughnuts to a group of hungry middle school kids wouldn’t be very hard. I didn’t think it would be that hard either until I started putting it all together. What some people think would be very easy, could also be complex.

First of all, I had to make a plan. After I figured out that I was going to sell doughnuts to raise money for the MACC Fund, I started. My mom and I called Pick N Save to see what deals we could get on the doughnuts. We were told that we could get doughnuts for $0.25 a piece. Next I had to get permission. I wrote a proposal and found it pretty easy to convince Mr. Daul to let me do this project since he liked the idea before I showed him my proposal. I filled out the necessary forms, picked the dates, and we were on our way.

Before long, the day came to order the doughnuts. We had to pick the number of doughnuts to buy. We decided to sell 8 dozen a day. The order was being placed and the people at Pick N Save told us that we should have given them at least a 24 hour notice, but still agreed to fill our order. Lesson learned: make sure you give people enough time to do the things you ask them to do. When we came to pick up the doughnuts on the first day, we were all ready. I had tried to make this fundraiser fool proof so that everything would go as planned; but that is next to impossible. We were given the doughnuts and realized we were being charged full price for them. We talked with the bakery and they said that we would just have to buy the doughnuts at full price and call later in the day when store manager was there and we could talk to her about it. Unfortunately, if we would have known who we had talked to on the phone about the doughnuts, the person that said we could get them for $0.25, we might have had more of a chance of getting the doughnuts for that price. Lesson learned: always get the name of the person you are talking to.

We went to school with the doughnuts, and my mom figured out the pricing later in the day. I soon found out that 8 dozen doughnuts was not enough. Lesson learned: 8 dozen doughnuts is not nearly enough for middle school kids who like doughnuts, A LOT! I emailed my mom and had her order more doughnuts for the next day. Since, again, we didn’t order more with a 24 hour notice, not all of the doughnuts were ready the next morning. Since we had to get to school because the sale was starting soon, my mom and I took 12 dozen of the doughnuts that were done and brought them. She then went back to Pick N Save to get the other 6 dozen. From then to the time we waited for my mom to come back was probably some of the most chaotic time of my life. People just kept coming! From the moment I opened the first box to the moment the first 12 dozen were gone, there was no down time. But, as we sold the doughnuts, I realized that we still might not have enough. Unfortunately, I was right. Lesson learned: 18 dozen doughnuts isn’t enough either.

All in all, the fundraiser was a success. We raised $302.20 for the MACC Fund because of generous people. This money will hopefully help find a cure to childhood cancer and related blood diseases. Lesson learned: some things are not as easy as they seem.

The Dream of Perfection

When we are young, we create an image in our head of the person we want to be.  In our mind, this person is perfect.  But as we grow older, the image changes.  For example, a 5-year-old girl.  At that age, she wants to get older, maybe have really long curly hair, and wishes she could be more independent.  They think that when you are older, it is better.  If you were to tell this to a 30-year-old, they would probably disagree.  They, on the other hand, would say that being younger is better.  But, despite the want to be older or younger, we can’t change time.  We can’t turn back the clock, nor can we spin it forward faster.

As we move through life, we realize that what we wanted before was not what we thought it would be.  We didn’t understand that even though you’re older and you may not have someone taking your favorite toy away anymore, there are other, more difficult problems to deal with.  Children are born naïve to everything.   Trying to preserve their innocence, they are shown none of the struggles of an adult.  They do not know what it is like to be in debt.  They do not know what it is like to lose your job.  They do not know what it is like to have everything they know slip right through their grasp.  They see a perfect life.  Their own struggles are usually simple, but to them, it is the end of the world.  When they see people whose lives seem easier than anything they’ve ever done, they want to live like that.  Until they actually experience what life is like as an adult, they can never understand that no life is perfect, no matter what.  Every life has perfect moments, but in every life not all the moments are flawless.

Acceptance is everything.  We have to accept the person we were.  We have to accept the person we are.  We have to accept the person we will become.  Understanding that the image in our of the person we want to be might not be what is best.  No one is perfect, but everyone is unique, which makes them closer to perfect.
Life is not flawless; we have to learn to see it perfectly.  We have to learn to look past the bad and look at the good.  We have to learn to accept ourselves.  We have to learn to accept everything.  Then, and only then, will life seem perfect.  The trouble with all of this is the image in our head.   See the perfect person, and if it doesn’t match us, we consider ourselves imperfect.  Remember, there is no way to change time, we have to live with it the way it is.  Although perfection may our dream, we could be better being imperfect. We are all perfect in our own way; we just have to take the time to find the perfection.