Sweet Sarah's Project                                              Weekly Progress Update
Week of Friday, March 14, 2003
New Sponsors:
BakeMark (Cincinnati, OH) - Doug Townsend, GM
Donated 2 tubs of fondant icing and 10 cases of ready-to-bake cookies.
Collections:
Collected $54.75 last week from 14 customers. We would have had more but since production was cut down, we could only bring out 6 cookies to most customers (between the "freezing idea" and BakeMark's donation, we may have solved the production problem for now). 11 cookies unsold/discarded. We are going to send BB/BS our collections at month end. The funds will be deposited in a parent's account and a check will be written. We may donate the unsold cookies to a food shelter in the future.

Production:
Due to some end-of-season sports championships, several of the kids were unavailable last weekend. For the most part, March marks the end of these conflicts and baking will resume in full by the end of the month. Also, this was "Girl Scout Cookie month" and we figured people might have enough cookies!

We found a way to prepare and store cookie dough in advance so that this activity could continue at "full capacity" though. We are storing and freezing the dough for Black&Whites in cutoff 2-liter soda bottles that are dishwasher sanitized. The dough stays sliceable and the cookies are uniform in size. We are now looking into the possibility of storing them in poly tubing ala refrigerated Pillsbury slice-and-bake cookies.

We've discovered the limits of our mixers since the original recipe has been multiplied by 8x and that is growing. We skipped from hand mixers directly over the Kitchenaid to pails and paddles. The hand mixers could not reach the bottom of our mixing pails!

Marketing:
In the March production "downtime", we have been compiling the fax numbers of area businesses. A fax has been created to invite recipients to visit the website and their interest in receiving a display of cookies. To-date we have over 1,000 fax #'s in the computer just for the 5 zip codes surrounding our school. We are initially limiting it to this geography and to broadcasting only 50 per week (on Mondays) so that we don't get overwhelmed if the response is good. The first broadcast will be on Monday, March 17.

The fax idea came about after getting "no's" from about ¾ of the businesses personally called upon - too much driving around and rejection.

We are considering follow-up phone calls to businesses that we fax and don't hear from, as well as businesses with no fax number.

The initial website has not changed much, as time has been short. And to the girls who want to put an order form on the website, sorry! We are not going to take orders - too complicated and we cannot ship.

The initial idea to sell through retail channels has been changed as so many of the retailers needed to ring us through their register (no barcodes/sku).  We may go back to some of these chains eventually. The smaller local retailers are included in our fax campaign.

Presentation:
We are still using baskets ($0.25 thrift store) for most of the displays, with a homemade coin can. This is not desirable because of the inconsistency of appearance and basket supply. One of the parents is making a simple wooden display with a dowel to hold the cookies using the hang tag. We are still seeking a one-piece white cardboard "honor box" from box companies and are looking into using a cardboard parts "bin box" for this.

Donor needs:
A dedicated voicemail number.  We are seeking a donor.
Also honor boxes. We are still seeking a donor.

Parents - "look out for":
Extra used Daisy Seal-a-Meal machines. In case the ones we have break down. They have to be the "II" model (with the wire) - these work for polypropylene "cello" bags.

Thank you all volunteers!