Cooking for the Cause
Due to the positive swell of voting and support for What Would You Do For THE CAUSE? video from employees at LPL Financial, and unbeknownst to myself, our senior management team took an unexpected initiative and approved a food fundraiser to benefit the Run4Papa campaign the day the charity contest totals were announced. Kathy, one of the managers on theNew Accounts Team in Charlotte and well-known for her culinary skills (she could easily be mistaken for a gourmet chef if she weren’t working in finance full-time) lead the way. Minus the cost of food, all contributions would go directly to fund research for PPA.
Kathy offered to cook twice during the week. On Monday, she prepared chicken curry with rice while on Friday, she cooked stir fry with spicy noodles ($5 a plate). Both days included spring rolls (2 for $1) and cupcakes ($1) which were handmade by her daughters.
Our entire team was emailed the Run4Papa Meets LPL Food Fundraiser flyer. On Monday morning, Kathy prepared a massive cauldron of her homemade chicken curry with over 300 spring rolls and 80 cupcakes to compliment the main dish. Several co-workers paid in advance and requested Kathy set aside their plates due to meetings during our lunch break; some even requested multiple plates – one for lunch and one for dinner (they had sampled her food in the past).
We brought the food up to our break room and before we finished setting up shop, a line had already formed. The mix of curry spices, chicken, vegetables and rice was emanating throughout our floor; the smell alone would make you salivate. We went through all the chicken curry within an hour and had repeat customers for the spring rolls. In the latter part of the afternoon, we walked from floor to floor selling the remaining spring rolls and cupcakes.
Word of mouth spread about Kathy’s cooking from earlier in the week and people from not only our department but numerous others lined up to eat, donate, and express their praise about the campaign. Similar to Monday, the stir fry with spicy noodles and egg rolls went quickly. Moreover, there were people who would donate more than the cost of their food and others who had brought their own lunch but wanted to contribute to the cause.
The takeaway from the LPL food fundraiser amounted to $489! On top of that, Kathy made the donation on behalf of our New Accounts team which ended up being doubled through our firm’s matching program. Overall, the success of the food fundraiser attracted people’s immediate attention, raised awareness for PPA, and collected monies to the tune of $978!
My co-workers had clearly been inspired by the video and previously had no idea about PPA, let alone the symptoms of the disease. I am proud the PPA video produced this type of positive reaction and thus created more awareness about this widely unknown dementia.
Hopefully this video will enable people to take more notice of those battling this disease, and one day with that mentality, PPA will be as familiar to people as Alzheimer’s is today…