Sneaky, duplicitous journalists
Every year we hold an internal auction of all the freebies companies send us in hopes that we'll promote them. The money we raise goes to charity. Most years we sponsor Salvation Army families at the holidays and contribute to the Empty Stocking Fund. We plan to do that this year, too.
With one extra contribution.
The organizers of our company United Way fund drive decided to engage us in a bit of internal warfare to raise even more money. A contest was staged to see which department could raise the most pennies. But only pennies counted. If you dropped any other currency into another department's penny jug, the value of that currency was deducted from their total.
Doesn't sound like the sort of United Way campaign Neil Belenky would approve of, does it?
Newsroom organizers quickly realized we weren't going to make it with just pennies. So, using that spirit of cooperation and generosity that we all learned from "Survivor," a plan was hatched to spend some of our auction revenue to sabotage everyone else. After all, a well-placed $100 bill would wipe 10,000 pennies off the slate. So, at the 11th hour, as everyone else was debating whether circulation or administration was going to win, our saboteurs dropped a few Benjamins in jugs overrun with pennies.
That wasn't all the fund raising the staff did. City Hall reporter Margaret Banks raffled off her car-washing skills and now editorial page editor Allen Johnson's going to get his ride detailed. Education writer Morgan Josey won the opportunity to take over managing editor Ann Morris' office for a day. But the big heroes were reporters Amy Dominello, Tina Firesheets and Lanita Withers, who organized our campaign.
In the end, we won. Company-wide, the Penny Wars raised an additional $2,515.36 for a worthy cause.
I'm sure our productivity went down for the week, but I'm blaming the publisher, who let United Way into the building in the first place.
The prize for all this effort? The joy of giving, of course.
And a pizza party.
Comments (2)
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Don't forget bragging rights! :)
Posted on October 19, 2006 10:58 AM
I'm sure the pizza guy LOVED it when you paid him with pennies.
Posted on October 25, 2006 5:29 PM