Despite this year’s pandemic restrictions, the Community Service Organization (CSO) has kept traditions alive, albeit with a twist. Most recently, CSO creatively reinvented the annual Candy Cane Sales into the Chocolate Kisses Drive, ingeniously adapting to this year’s hurdles.
This past December, the Upper School remained virtual during the two-week period that CSO traditionally organizes the Candy Cane Sales because of a spike in COVID-19 cases. Instead of canceling the drive, CSO reshaped the tradition into the Chocolate Kisses Drive for the Valentine’s Day season because, according to CSO Director Sra. Márquez, “We wanted to send a contribution [to Make-A-Wish] because they are hurting and not receiving as many donations this year.”
According to CSO members, the process remained the same: CSO representatives were tasked with selling slips and keeping a list, entering information into Google Sheets, proofreading the completed slips, and organizing them into piles based on advisories. Although candy canes in previous years were distributed over the entire day, Sra. Márquez and Mr. Chubb decided that it would be most efficient to distribute all the Hershey’s kisses during advisory. However, there was one other major consideration: inclusion of the virtual, at-home students. Showcasing the CSO’s innovative spirit, Sra. Márquez and Mr. Chubb created a Google Form for at-home students to purchase their slips and type a message. CSO printed these slips for distribution to in-person students. Mr. Chubb then collected and mailed slips directly to their houses.
Despite the many pieces to this puzzle, CSO was able to put together a successful, popular drive. According to Sra. Márquez, CSO raised over $3,058, which was “a lot considering the snow day, two late arrivals, and a holiday over the two-week period. And, don’t forget—not all of the grades are in-person everyday!” Very happy with their results, CSO sent this money to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a charity that strives to help fulfill life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. Because of the drive’s success, Sra. Márquez is considering the idea of “marrying the Candy Cane Sales and Chocolate Kisses Drives and having both in one holiday drive” in the future since both were successful. Furthermore, in future years with less COVID-19 procedures, she wants to see if the Chocolate Kisses Drive will have more success than the Candy Cane Sales, which typically “makes over $4,000.” If so, CSO will consider transitioning from the Candy Cane Sales to the Chocolate Kisses Drive permanently.
Very pleased with the results, Sra. Márquez and Mr. Chubb had many thanks to give to the CSO community. Sra. Márquez states, “We want to give a ‘collaboration in action’ shoutout to some of our faculty: Ms. DelGrande, Ms. Kesten, Mr. O’Hern, Mr. Greenleaf, and the Library team, Ms. Caramanico, and Mr. Nelson.” They also wanted to give Mr. Houston a huge thank you for “storing all our kisses in the kitchen refrigerator over the unexpected four-day break”! Last but not least, they wanted to extend their thanks to the CSO student members who helped organize and run the event. Without all of their support, this tradition wouldn’t have been possible!