Hands to Haiti has raised over $1,200 so far during their sale of Boo Grams this week due to new online ordering and advertising, making this their most successful year of Boo Grams sales to date.
Boo Grams are Halloween-themed goody bags filled with candy and Halloween toys and accessories. They cost $4 if ordered in person at the table near the entrance to the lower cafe and $4.50 if ordered through the online form.
Students who purchased Boo Grams will receive an email on October 30 detailing the locations of where students will be able to pick theirs up on October 31. This email will also let students know whether they received the Halloween themed treat from a named person or a “secret sender.”
On October 31, students can make the choice to either pick up their Boo Grams during their lunch block at the club table in the lower cafe or they can receive their Boo Grams from members of the club who will be dressed up as ghosts in the senior lobby after school.
This is the third year that Hands to Haiti has held the event. Similarly to previous years, they were sold during lunch blocks from Oct. 23-Oct. 27. However, this year, the club officers also decided to create an online ordering platform to allow students, parents, and faculty to order them digitally. Vice president of the club and junior Mia Votano set up the online order form using a site known as Jotform and came up with the idea to include more members of the WA community in the event.
“One of our main goals for the club this year was to get the community involved with Hands to Haiti, not just the student body and we saw an opportunity to incorporate that goal with Boo Gram sales,” Votano said. “I created an online form that allowed people to pay directly through it and posted it on Facebook so people that don’t go to WA could send students a Boo Gram.”
Votano described the immediate response from the community as overwhelming. Within days of opening the form, many parents of WA students were ordering the treats as a fun surprise for their kids on Halloween.
As the form remained open, more and more orders from a variety of people continued to pour in. According to president of Hands to Haiti, junior Alana Parks, in addition to students and parents ordering for students, teachers have been ordering Boo Grams for other teachers, and a dance studio has even ordered them for their WA seniors.
The form has made it easier for students to order a Boo Gram as well. In past years, students have had to remember to bring cash to lunch, but with the online orders, students can pay digitally at any time they want.
Hands to Haiti has also increased their advertising this year with multiple posts on Facebook and Instagram, videos on the morning announcements, and posters around WA.
With more orders than ever, the club officers have had to gather supplies, organize club meetings where members could make posters, make spreadsheets for members to sign up for lunch block sale shifts, and create posts for social media.
“Organizing the event has definitely been time consuming,” Parks said. “We had to find a suitable website that would be able to collect all the online orders that people could pay on […] and do a lot of marketing on Facebook, Instagram, and WABC to spread the word.”
Even with all of these tasks to complete, club advisor and social studies teacher Anthony Brown described the officers as prepared at all times.
“They have a list for the Boo Grams of everything they want to put into the bags, and how much it will cost,” Brown said. “When we made the Boo Grams they had all the supplies, so they’re super self-sufficient and super industrious.”
The club’s hardwork has paid off though with over $1,200 of sales, the club has profited about $1,000. However, even with their huge success, the officers still hope to improve in the coming years.
“Since the entire [online form] is new we have definitely made some mistakes in the planning process but I am so happy with what we have accomplished so far,” Votano said. “Next year I would like to make over $1,500 in profit […] I think we would also love to sell more in lunches, the online form has been the majority of our sales.”
