I.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

There have always been those people who have a hard time supporting themselves, always
working as hard as they can to bring in money that barely pays for their necessities. Since the
economy has been falling in a direction we don’t want it to, it has gotten harder. Some people were
born into their stress; others had it unexpectedly dropped on them. We felt the needs of these people
must be addressed. These people are supported by agencies that rely on the government and
donations from citizens, so we decided to help the agencies in their care.
We chose the Cares Food Network (Cares) as the beneficiary of our Community Service
Project because of their dedication to supporting those who need help. They are number one in
Chester County, Pennsylvania for helping people and have been around for almost eighty years.
Their effectiveness, however, was suddenly being compromised by a huge drop in donations and
grant money.
When we were told about this agency, not many of us had heard of it. This instantly gave
us one of our goals. We needed to get Cares’ name out there. We knew the agency could benefit
a lot from just publicity, having helped out welfare agencies in years past. We found out what
exactly the organization programs entailed and decided to assist these programs.
Of the programs that they have, we decided to assist with their main ones; the food
distribution, the Adopt-a-Family, and the referral program. We had a Food Drive to bring in
canned and non-perishable foods and donated directly to Cares’ impressive food cupboard. We
collected 268 pounds of food and it astounded us. We had a Clothing Drive, the proceeds of
which we donated to The Salvation Army in West Chester, where Cares refers its clients who
need clothing. We brought in 458 pounds of clothing.
This is the first time we’ve teamed with two other school groups to get them directly
involved in our Community Service Project. Ninth graders in the School Success classes
collected toys, cleaned them and then sold them at a flea market, the proceeds of which helped
buy presents for a family in need, as part of the Cares’ Adopt-a-Family program. This group also
collected spare change at lunch to help fund the present money. During this time, another
vocational club at our school, FCCLA, joined forces and held a special Thanksgiving event in
the cafeteria and gave their proceeds to our Adopt-A-Family fund. In all, $368 was collected. A
group of these ninth graders went to Wal-Mart and Target to buy presents. The family was a
husband and wife with two little girls. The three month old got the supplies and child toys and
the three year old got a coat, a bicycle and a few toys. The parents received a grocery store gift
card and key chains with their children’s names engraved on them.
When we toured the Cares facility, the administrator told us they would be moving soon.
They were forced to move to smaller quarters, and had no money to hire movers. We decided to
volunteer our time helping them move. We moved 60% of their food supply. They were very
grateful that we helped them since most of their people were not as strong and energetic as we were.
We so believed in Cares and its mission that we had to inform the community as well as
our school. We had an article published on the front page of a local newspaper that was
delivered to 71,893 residences all around Chester County, we had an article in the school
newspaper, we created a web page at www.geocities.com/catdeca and we displayed an
informational poster board along with brochures at our school’s Open House and huge
Astronomical Anything Sells Sale.
We all had a lot of fun with this project. This project brought about a constructive impact
on the community. Working on this project improved on qualities such as selflessness,
community awareness, teamwork, and leadership. We definitely had a great effect on our school
and the people around us.

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II. INTRODUCTION

A. Historic background of the selected community service or charity

Cares Food Network is an organization that assists the needy in Chester County,

Pennsylvania. You don’t have to be poor to be assisted by Cares. It started in 1929, as The

Community Services Council of Chester County and has continued to assist those who need help

in Chester County (Chester County Cares, 2004).

In the year of 1923, the Chester County Health and Welfare Council was created to

educate people about the many needs of residents of Chester County. This council consisted of

citizens of Chester County that were interested in helping the community, as well as

representatives of local welfare groups. They used this council to make sure that everything that

could be done to help out the needy was being done.

During the depression, the council continued to help out the needy by moving to smaller

offices and downsizing to just a volunteer staff so they could be more efficient and put what

resources they still possessed, back in the hands of those that needed help. They studied the

deficiency of suitable care for citizens in need and helped raise awareness of the services

available in the council.

In the 1940’s, in the state of Pennsylvania, a law was passed that required every

community within the state to have a “Community Health Assembly” during World War II. The

Department of Health of Pennsylvania asked the council to be this assembly for Chester County.

In the 1950’s, the Welfare Council continued to study human health and welfare, as well

as support change. In the year 1954, a meeting was held where they were turned into Chester

County Cares. They also established or were involved in programs to help the needy all over

Chester County in programs like the Phoenixville Area Community Services and The Rental

Assistance Program.

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 Since the 1930’s, Chester County Cares has been assisting the poverty-stricken in

Chester County, Pennsylvania. They work with the local and state government to maximize care

for everyone who needs it, as well as accept donations of food and money. They provide

information to those they can’t assist directly on where to get the help they need. Last year over

103,000 meals were served to residents in Chester County directly or indirectly by Cares. They

gleaned 37 tons of produce from 40 farms in the Chester County (Chester County Cares, 2005).

In 2008, the name was changed to The Cares Food Network. It has been around for

almost eighty years assisting people in need and hopefully it will be around for eighty more.

B. Description of the local DECA chapter, school, and community

Our school is the Center for Arts and Technology, Pickering Campus, which is located in

Phoenixville, PA. There are 16 members in this year’s DECA, comprised of sophomores,

juniors, and seniors all of whom are in the Computer Information Systems shop.

Our DECA chapter at CAT Pickering is divided by the school’s scheduling system. In the

morning the ninth and tenth graders have Career and Technical Education, while the eleventh

and twelfth graders are in academic classes. After lunch it switches and the eleventh and twelfth

graders work mostly on their Career and Technical Education and their DECA activities. We

have DECA meetings fairly regularly during lowerclassmen lunch to discuss anything going on

with our projects. We often work on fundraisers for money always needed, upcoming

competitions, school activities, and community projects. We are a small chapter because we are a

small school and membership is limited to only those members of the CIS shop.

When the students come into the shop and log in to the computers, they first complete the

daily assignment, which might be some math or typing a business letter or memo. Then they start

working on whatever project they currently have. Ninth graders usually have a music video,

Lego robotics, or basic encryption background. Tenth graders might have HTML, Alice, or

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maybe a DECA project. The eleventh and twelfth graders are usually working on business

assignments, marketing, their DECA project, or some more advanced type of programming like

C++.

We are a vocational technical school; we have a full time academic program that

combines with an occupational program. The way this works out is with block scheduling. At

eight o’clock, the lowerclassmen go to their career program for an hour and a half while the

upperclassmen go to their academic classes based on the letter assigned day. Everyday has a

different letter from A to F, which helps to determine academic classes, Health, Spanish, and

Gym. At nine-thirty, the upperclassmen go their next academic class while some lowerclassmen

stay in their shop and others go to Health or Spanish. At ten-fifteen, the lowerclassmen switch.

We have 14 programs here at CAT for students to take part in to further their education.

They include Animal Science and Technology, Automotive Collision Technology, Automotive

Service Technology, Carpentry, Computer Information Systems, Cosmetology, Culinary Arts,

Early Childhood Care and Education, Electronic Systems Technology, Engine Technology,

Graphics Communications and Printing, Health Occupations, Security and Police Sciences, and

Telecommunications. We also have a Co-op Program for students who have had three years of

education in our school to go work in the field and receive a paycheck and a grade from their

employer. On Fridays these students come in for the state required gym and academics.

CAT Pickering’s students come from seven districts that send students who have been

accepted to CAT all from Chester County. These districts are Great Valley in Malvern,

Phoenixville, Owen J. Roberts in Pottstown, Tredyfrin, Radnor, Downingtown and West

Chester.

Our school is located in Chester County, which is about 30 miles west of Philadelphia, in

Southeastern Pennsylvania. We were one of three counties that William Penn set up in 1682.

(Chesco, 2008) The entire area of Chester County varies from farmland to almost city-like living,

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with everything in between. We are 760 square miles in size with a population density of about

573.4 people per square mile. In 2006, our population was 482,112 (US Census Bureau, 2008).

We have one city, fifteen boroughs, and 57 townships, as well as fourteen public school districts

(Wikipedia, 2008).

Chester County is very historic. The first railroad, which became the Pennsylvania

Railroad, ran through Chester County, as well as the Reading Railroad. George Washington had

his troops rest during the winter at Valley Forge. Also during the American Revolution was the

Battle of Brandywine, located in the southeastern part of the county. The Paoli Massacre is also

located in Chester County in the Borough of Malvern (Wikipedia, 2008).

III. CONTRIBUTIONS TO A NEEDED COMMUNITY SERVICE OR CHARITY

A. Description and purpose of the project

This Community Service Project was done for the benefit of the Cares Food Network of

Chester County, PA. Project team leaders met with administrators from Cares to establish their

needs and wants and how our CAT Pickering DECA Chapter could best help them achieve these.

From our discussions we found out that Cares was handling more families than ever before.

They were responsible for feeding roughly 80 families a month and these families could range in

size from two to ten members. Not only did they service these families but many other people

came to Cares for clothing, nonperishable items such as diapers, money to help heat their homes

and help with giving their family a decent Christmas.

We immediately decided that we could devise a project by which we could contribute to

all these different areas. We started by promoting Cares through daily informative

announcements, flyers around the school and a DVD we made. Interest was shown by the

teacher who is in charge of all ninth grade students with a class called School Success and soon

enough they were on board helping with fund raising for the Cares Adopt-a-Family program.

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 Another group, FCCLA, also became interested and ran another event to raise funds for

this program. This program would provide presents for a family who otherwise would not be

able to have a Christmas with presents for their young family, so we had found a way to help

Cares for at least one family.

We held both a Clothing Drive and a Food Drive to help with what the administrators

voiced as a desperate need. We were able to accomplish this through lots of advertising,

promotions and support from students and staff members around the school. We collected an

unbelievable amount of clothing (458 pounds) and food (268 pounds) to help raise the inventory

at Cares.

While we were at the Cares facility, the administrators briefly mentioned that they were

being forced to move to much smaller quarters because they had failed to secure the usual

amount of grant money. Donations were down, and their rent had gone up. We couldn’t help

them with their money issues, but we could help them physically move so our DECA Chapter

volunteered their time for a day and moved 60% of their entire food inventory to the new facility.

It was long, hard work but everyone was extremely proud that so much had been accomplished

in just one day.

This project also included another part to it and that was our DECA group working

together to provide awareness about Cares to CAT Pickering’s staff, student body and the

surrounding community so we could encourage more community service in future generations.

It gave the students a volunteer opportunity to take part in during their spare time, and that

provides important life experience and lessons. If students get in the habit of volunteering, they

are more likely to do so in the future. They can also tell others about the work they are doing and

then even more people will join in on helping the community.

This project started out to be a community service opportunity for our DECA Chapter. It

ended up being so much more. For the first time that our Advisor can ever remember, several

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groups within our school joined forces to help promote and work on this project. DECA

members got to see what fantastic results can be achieved when groups all work together for a

common cause. Aside from the tremendous volunteer opportunity afforded everyone, students

and community members became aware that if they need help in the future, whether they suspect

they will or not, that it is available to them from Cares. One should know where to go for

assistance should they or anyone they know, require it.

B. Rationale for selecting the community service or charitable project

Cares works hard to help the impoverished get some of the food and money for shelter that

they desperately need. With more local companies laying off people, small businesses closing and

prices going up, the numbers that Cares will have to deal with are increasing. Along with these

increases, people are also losing their possessions from fire, debt from diseases, divorce, and more.

Unfortunately, there were several articles in local newspapers that said charity donations were

down, grant money that helps fund Chester County social service agencies was way down and

places like Cares are running into trouble. (Behringer, 2008)

Our DECA, having read some of these articles, decided that we would do our Community

Service Project to help the Cares Food Network. Students who attend our school come from all

parts of Chester County and since Cares is an agency who helps people in Chester County we

thought we would be able to give of our time and our skill to help them in their own time of need.

The members of our DECA Chapter thought that the skills they were obtaining in the

Computer Information Systems shop would be ideal for use in implementing this project.

Members, for example, had excellent desktop publishing ability and could put that to good use

by creating brochures. These brochures would contain specific information regarding Cares and

could be distributed to the students and staff of CAT Pickering as well as to members of the

Chester County community. These desktop publishing skills, along with web development skills,

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research skills, communication/presentation skills and their analytical thinking training, made

this project a rational choice.

C. Description of the benefits of the project to the chapter and chapter members’
understanding of leadership development, social intelligence and community service

Members of our DECA chapter learned the importance of leadership by participating in

this project. This was a tremendous benefit to everyone involved. The project work all

progressed efficiently as sentiment to our commitment, cooperation, and respect towards our

leaders and their duties. Our leaders were all very patient with what needed to get done and

when, but made sure it was all ready and done to the best of their abilities for the due dates. An

efficient leader must be critical but find a proper balance between degrading and approving

everything regardless of the quality. A leader must also keep their attention focused to the tasks,

times, and progressions at hand as well as keep a steady organization throughout. Our leaders fit

the criteria, and gained a respect from everyone enough to build a strong trust, and work ethic

around the tasks. We appreciate the fact that without this successful leadership, our project

wouldn’t have been nearly the success it turned out to be.

The social intelligence of our group was raised from this project, because the majority of

the students were unaware that people in our own community were suffering so terribly. We

hadn’t necessarily been exposed to the degree of difficulty experienced by these people so we

were unable to help them. The benefit of this project to our DECA chapter was that we now

could look around us and assess the situation. We might be able recognize when someone was in

trouble, and if they were, what we might suggest a way of coping or obtaining help.

Not long into the project we became aware of the predicament that Cares was going

through, how much needed to be done, and the benefits an agency such as this can provide. We

also benefited by learning the importance of social service agencies to the welfare of the people

in our community. If the community has needs that are not met, then people suffer. In educating
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the people around us, we gained the satisfaction of knowing many more of those people were

and are being helped each day. Part of the purpose of our project was to bring the community

together as one to help those that couldn’t get help otherwise. Our civic duty was fulfilled in this

and our chapter gained confidence that more can be done in the future as well to help as family

situations grow worse.

Most of us had never participated in community service before or if we had, it was simply

donating a product to a Clothing or Food Drive. We never really knew what those drives were for

or what happened after we dropped the items off. In this project, we learned the true meaning of

community service and the necessity of it. We not only contributed physical items but gave of our

time. We saw first hand the recipients of our hard work when we were down visiting the Cares

facility and families were all lined up waiting to receive help.

Cares wouldn’t have met their deadlines for moving if not for our help. Doing so

brought a feeling of satisfaction and self-worth to the members of our group, many whom have

never practiced community service before in their pasts. It gave a feeling of inspiration that

made our group strive to do more for others even after the DECA project was completed.

Our teamwork visibly improved over the time we worked on this and we all gained

something to be proud of. All of us want to continue to do community service. We all agree that

we had a most fulfilling experience.

IV. ORGANIZATION AND IMPLEMENTATION

A. Organizational chart, member involvement and job description

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 DOCUMENTAT
COLLECTION
ADVISOR
TEAM MEDIA
FACT
LEADERS
JoeFINDING/
Smith
ION
S/
Julie
Mrs.Roberts
VOLUNTEERI
PRESENTATIO
Hesson
Devin
Brianna
NGFeeser
NS
Sam
Buckwalter
Julie
TC
Melani
DiMarcello
Hickey
Roberts
Joe Smith
Brianna
Borillez
Lewis Granger
Devin
Buckwalter
TC
Stephanie
Hickey
Feeser
Dwain Koon
Lewis
Stephanie
Simes
Joe Smith
Granger
Simes
Devin Feeser
Devin Feeser
Sam Roberts
Julie
DiMarcello
Dwain Koon
Melani
Devin
Borrilez
Feeser
Joe Smith
Julie Roberts
Devin
Feeser
Zach
Borntrager
Herb
Williams

The chart shown above is a breakdown of our structure and responsibilities. All members

of CAT-Pickering’s DECA Chapter were active in the project supporting Cares. This project

was to benefit the Chester County community by showing them how Cares works to help out the

people of our area and how we can use this opportunity to help fight hunger and poverty. We

worked as a team, using the skills we have learned in our shop; such as communications skills,

web design, leadership, graphic arts, organizational skills, time management and analytical skills.

Advisor: The Advisor for this Community Service Project was Mrs. Hesson. She made

connections and set up dates with the various organizations that required an adult authoritative

figure. She provided or arranged transportation for our group because we could not drive

ourselves. Mrs. Hesson also took care of the necessary paperwork such as permission slips and

the submitting of daily announcements.

Team Leaders: This project had three team leaders to guide the rest of the DECA

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group. They were Julie Roberts, Joe Smith and Devin Feeser. The team leaders mapped out the

entire project, organized the students into workable groups according to their skills, reminded

everyone of deadlines, wrote the manual, and were available to answer questions from everyone.

Fact Finding and Presentations: The students in this group went to work researching

information we could find about the Cares Food Network. We looked at the internet, newspaper,

and Cares literature. We wanted to have an understanding before we went to visit the Cares

facility.

After we understood the issues at hand, we took a tour of the Cares building and met staff

members. We asked questions about anything left that we were unsure about or interested in.

Following the tour, we created a PowerPoint Presentation which we showed to the 9th

grade and DECA members. We spoke to these groups to educate them about Cares and

entertained ideas for our project.

Documentation: Flyers were made and passed out for our Food Drive, Clothing Drive,

and Adopt-A Family program. This group also made a poster which was displayed at a large flea

market and open house. The poster involved a lot of time and careful planning because pictures

had to be collected or taken, printed off, and precisely placed. Facts had to be organized and

printed out, as did other informative paragraphs and logos.

This group also made a brochure that was distributed to interested visitors at our school’s

open house, at our Astronomical Anything Sells Flea Sale, and in the front office. They also

made the labels that were affixed to the collection boxes and the collection jars.

Media: The ninth graders, DECA, and the entire school where shown a multi-media

video on Cares that this group planned for, recorded, and edited. On our DECA website this

group added a page for Cares at http://www.geocities.com/catdeca. They took advantage of the

daily announcements at school by creating informative pieces about Cares. They would submit

these pieces daily, each one would give a different fact about Cares and how Cares can benefit

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and impact the community. An interviewer from The Community Courier newspaper talked to

this group about our project. The published article gained attention for our project by even more

people in the county.

Collections/ volunteering: This group spent some time covering boxes to make them

more appealing for the clothing and food drives. This group placed the boxes in the most

common and convenient places for people to take notice and remind them to donate. We

brought the items up to shop that we had collected around the school and from teacher’s cars.

We then weighed all the food and clothing that we had collected and loaded it into the van.

We delivered and unloaded all the food to Cares. Cares gives vouchers for clothing to be

received from the Salvation Army in West Chester, PA, so we transported all the items

collected from our Clothing Drive to the Salvation Army facility.

We volunteered time at the Cares facility. The grant money and donations were so low

this past year that Cares had to give up their relatively new facility because they could no

longer afford the rent. This necessitated a move across town to a much smaller facility. It

also meant that Cares had no money to pay for movers and had to rely on volunteers (mostly

older women) to do the physical labor. During their move we transported multiple van loads

of food to their new building despite the huge rainstorm. We unloaded and stacked all the

items we transported from their original building. Their original stockroom was empty when it

was time to go home. This work saved them a lot of labor and time. With the time saved

surely more people and families were helped.

B. Description of the project and documentation

We began our project for Cares with researching what Cares was about, who they

helped, and how we could maximize our skills to help them out. We went online to their

website to get part of this information, and then we organized a visit to their facility to meet

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different department heads, take a tour, and discuss with their administration how they could

best use our DECA Chapter [Appendix A].

We then had a meeting with our DECA members and presented what we had learned on

our visit to Cares. We brainstormed ideas for the project and then organized job tasks. The

students signed up according to their interests and abilities. We synchronized deadlines

specifically to conveniently coincide with the school activity calendar and to coordinate with

Cares’ needs for their move and Adopt-a-Family program.

Our DECA and two other vocational clubs planned on holding a large flea market

called the Astronomical Anything Sells Sale in the middle of September. We thought we

should put up a table containing information on Cares and have members present to answer

questions. For the table, we created a poster [Appendix B] and brochures [Appendix C] to

hand out.

We knew we had to get the ninth graders involved because one of our goals was to get

them interested in community service. We set to work making a PowerPoint presentation

movie to show them through visual and auditory learning, what Cares was about. They were so

interested they decided to join us with a table at the flea market [Appendix B] and sell items

they collected then save the money they earned to put towards the Adopt-a-Family program.

The people attending the flea market were quite interested in Cares and even though it

has been in Chester County for a very long time, most people hadn’t heard of it. This made us

think that we should set up our informational table at CAT Pickering’s Open House, where

parents and students could read our poster and take home a brochure. We also thought this

would introduce them to the different events we had planned in support of Cares.

Following the flea market and Open House, we held a large, very successful Clothing

Drive [Appendix D]. We collected 458 pounds of clothing and transported it to the West

Chester Salvation Army. Cares gives vouchers to families who need clothing and sends them

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to the West Chester Salvation Army shop to select what they need. The Cares facility isn’t

large enough to house clothing items other than children’s winter coats.

We launched our Food Drive next [Appendix D] and we collected as much food as we

could all the while we reminded everyone it was for a good cause and was greatly needed. We

weighed all our donations and drove it to the Cares facility.

Around this same time, Cares could no longer afford to stay in their facility. Their

donations were way down, grants didn’t come through, and their rent was increased. They

were able to find a much smaller space across town but didn’t even have enough money to rent

vans, movers or additional help. We gathered together as many DECA members as would fit

in our school’s van, and we went down to help them. [Appendix E] In a rainstorm that did not

end all day, we loaded their van with boxes as full as we could get it. Then the items were

driven to the new building where we met up with the van and moved the boxes again, to their

new places. We went back to the old building again and repeated this process as many times as

we could before time ran out to go home. It was the first time that many of us had ever

volunteered time for a community group and we felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment at

the end of that day.

We showed the community what we were working on, in hopes that they would donate

time, money, or product to Cares. We appeared on the front page of The Community Courier

newspaper which is a newspaper distributed free of charge to 76,893 residences around Chester

County. [Appendix F] We also created a page on our website at www.geocities.com/catdeca

[Appendix G] to describe Cares.

We wanted to further demonstrate our efforts to help Cares by informing the students

and staff of CAT Pickering. On the daily morning/afternoon announcements, we had facts read

about the various services Cares provides. We also had our picture on the front page of the

Pickering Page, the school’s newspaper [Appendix H]. It was our hope that students and staff

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would not only contribute items to our various drives but could be in a position to recommend

it to someone in need.

The last part of our project came when the ninth graders collected spare change from

everyone during lunch time. Also during this time, members of FCCLA collected change to

help donate to our money drive with a game called Your Teacher is a Turkey. [Appendix I]

Jars with each shop teacher’s picture on them were filled with the money donated. Each

student participating donated a dollar or a can of food and a feather was added to the picture.

All the money earned from it went directly to the family we had agreed to adopt for Christmas.

In all, we collected $350 which enabled us to purchase toys, food and a bicycle for our adopted

family. A different group of students volunteered their time and went out to Toys “R” Us and

Wal-Mart to shop for the family’s needs and Christmas presents. [Appendix I]

C. Impact goal for the beneficiary

Our goals were set from the very beginning of the project. We had two beneficiaries of

our goals. The primary beneficiary was The Cares Food Network. The second beneficiary was

our community which included the students and staff of our school and the people of Chester

County, PA.

Our first goal was to make the community aware of Cares and its contribution to society.

People didn’t seem to recognize what the Cares Food Network was so we had to figure out a way

to make their name known. In gaining public recognition, people might donate more money,

food or other supplies to increase Cares’ inventory.

A second goal to directly impact Cares was to increase the clothing supply for their

referral program. We would conduct a Clothing Drive. More people than ever before were

seeking help for non-food issues, mainly clothing. We wanted to keep the local Salvation Army

location stocked so when Cares referred their clients to the Salvation Army, they could refer

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them with the assurance they would be adequately served.

Another goal for Cares was to conduct a Food Drive that would help carry them through

the holiday season by adding to their food pantry. Since more families than ever before were

asking Cares for help, we needed to step in and do the best we could to keep product on the

shelves.

Our fourth goal for Cares involved donating our time, as much as was necessary, to help

them out wherever they felt the need existed. As it turned out, they really needed help moving

all their food from the old location to the new location across town. Without our commitment of

time, their move would have been significantly delayed.

We hoped to raise some money to donate to the Cares organization. An administrator at

Cares suggested the Adopt-A-Family program would be a good place to put any money we

raised so we decided we would try to get enough money to provide a nice Christmas for a

smaller family.

A goal to inspire the community to help out their fellow people was what we strived for

next. By running our Food and Clothing Drives, people had the opportunity to do just that

without sacrificing too much of their personal time.

We were most interested in getting the ninth grade students in our school ready to

participate in community service. It is important for them to know that there are organizations in

the community that can help people who are is great need and it doesn’t take much to volunteer

time or items to make a valuable contribution that helps agencies such as Cares. If they learn at

an early age that volunteering is important, perhaps they will keep it up through their adult life.

Another goal for the community and students was to inform them of the good they could

do for our community each day. It takes everyone working together to make a community

successful and if people would not be selfish and be more caring, then our Chester County would

be a better place to live.

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V. EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A. Evaluation of the project

After going to the Cares Food Network building, we had a full understanding of how

Cares works, and what they do to help the less fortunate. They do not just provide food, which

was our understanding when we first started our project. Despite their name, they also provide

clothing, diapers, and toys. Cares also can aid with financial troubles and they help with

referring people to the correct government agencies that can provide further care. Had we not

gone on the tour and talked with different administrators, we would not have had the correct

understanding of all the work Cares accomplishes and we would not have been able to pass this

on to our targets.

At CAT Pickering’s “Astronomical Anything Sells Sale” we had a DECA/ninth grade

table set up. We sold an assortment of random objects and gave out pamphlets. We were very

successful at the sale, collecting money from donations and sales towards Cares Food Network.

Many people read our pamphlets and/or saw our poster that we had put up in front of our table.

Two students handed out pamphlets while another two stayed at the table selling things. Having

a table at this flea market was a very good idea.

Our Clothing Drive was also very successful. We had the students and faculty members

attending the school bring in clothing for Cares. Room 232 was the drop off place for the

clothing during the drive, but much of the clothing had to be brought upstairs from the lobby. We

had our entire back room filled with clothing. The nurse allowed us to weigh the clothing using

her scale. The clothing was given to the Salvation Army because the new Cares facility didn’t

have a room large enough for a clothing inventory. Cares gives vouchers to go to the Salvation

Army for clothing and they needed to build up their supply of clothing which we definitely

helped to do.

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 In league with Mrs. Mulford’s School Success classes, we raised a lot of money for the

Adopt-a-Family program. Students were asked for their spare change towards Christmas presents

for a family who couldn’t afford them. The amount collected so far exceeded our goals that we

began raising money for another family. Freshmen were eager to help donate and when Mrs.

Mulford asked for volunteers to shop for the presents, six freshmen volunteered. Getting other

classes involved helped DECA not only introduce the concept of community service to more

students, but also got more students directly involved.

This involvement spread even further with the participation of FCCLA. In evaluating the

success of this project, our Advisor couldn’t think of a time when another vocational

organization came to work with our DECA Chapter. This was a huge accomplishment.

We also had a Food Drive for Cares. There were announcements over the PA system in

CAT Pickering in the morning asking for nonperishable food items from the students. To

encourage more donations, we extended the deadline by one week. This seemed to work, as we

ended up collecting a large donation of nonperishable food for Cares.

In the end, this project was so successful because the DECA team was able make the

plans, see them through by meeting all their deadlines, work together efficiently, and

communicate their goals so effectively and enthusiastically that other classes and vocational

groups in the school volunteered to join the project. Many lives were touched by this project.

B. Impact of the community service or charitable project

Our food and clothing drives were very effective. We collected a total of 268 pounds of

food and 458 pounds of clothing. During the Astronomical Anything Sells Sale, we made a total

of $65 and successfully raised awareness of Cares Food Network through pamphlets and posters.

With the Adopt-a-Family program, FCCLA and Mrs. Mulford’s School Success classes raised

$303 so, when all added up, we had $368 to spend on presents. This was quite unexpected and

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greatly appreciated by the recipients.

CAT Pickering’s DECA Chapter aided in moving roughly 60% of Cares stock to their

new building. Cares was forced to move because they could not afford to pay their rent due to a

lapse in donations, so the food stock had to be transported to their new building. Our help

moving the food had a huge impact on the workers of Cares because without us, the moving

would have taken much, much longer. We had to load and unload a van in the pouring rain. For

some in DECA it was the first time they had done volunteer charity work.

With our project we had gotten students more interested in charity work, both the

students that are in DECA and also the students in School Success. Six freshmen in School

Success volunteered to help with the shopping for Adopt-a-Family and almost all of the entire

class donated towards the cause. We reached students outside of DECA and School Success as

well, through brochures and the newspaper. We were interviewed and put in the Community

Courier, and the Phoenixville area newspaper. All of this impacted Cares because suddenly their

name and cause were placed on the front page of local papers, one of which was delivered to

71,893 residences. The thousands of people that received these papers, read the article, perhaps

followed the link to our informative web page, were now made familiar with Cares and might

either volunteer time, products or even recommend someone they know who could benefit from

some help.

C. Recommendation(s) for future projects

For future projects we should keep our association with the freshmen School Success

classes. They turned out more helpful than first anticipated, helping us with most of the Adopt-a-

Family fundraiser and spreading enthusiasm throughout the school. We need to get more third

parties to help us with our projects. Boy Scouts of America or other youth organizations would

surely volunteer to help us with fundraisers and charity work.

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 Room 232 (CIS Lab Room) has served well as a drop off place for donations of food and

clothing, although some things were dropped off at the lobby. When we start a new collection

project we should make it clearer that the donations should be sent to Room 232.

As well as increased awareness of where to donate, we should have more places to

donate spare change. We could put up donation boxes in more places in the school or even at

local stores and restaurants. If more students had their driver’s licenses, we could go to different

places to put up donation boxes and also go back to collect them.

We need to talk to the school principal about availability of another school van. This

project, and we could assume future projects, had so many students interested in volunteering

that we couldn’t accommodate everyone. We had to work in shifts. It would be nice to have use

of another vehicle so everyone that wants to get involved can be involved.

One idea for future projects is to get the CAT Pickering cafeteria to give excess frozen

foods to Cares. This would be hard to do, though, because there may not be enough funds for

transportation and the extra work. If this were to happen, DECA might have to transport the

food to Cares.

And finally, we could go the Phoenixville First Friday and get a booth there to raise

money and give out pamphlets. First Friday is an evening where, the first Friday of every month,

the streets are closed off in downtown Phoenixville and people set up tables to sell things, come

to hear music, and walk around. It would be a perfect place to collect money for Cares.

VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Behringer, Tracy, Tough Times Taking Their Toll in Chester County, retrieved November,
2008, from http://www.dailylocalnews.com/articles/2002/11/17

“Chester County” (2008). Retrieved December 2008 from:

http://dsf.chesco.org/chesco/site/default.asp

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“Chester County Cares About Us."(2008). Chester County Cares. Retrieved November, 2008
from http://www.chestercountycares.org/page.aspx?id=323972.

Chester County Cares 2004 Annual Report. (2005). West Chester, PA: Chester Count Cares

Chester County Cares 2005 Annual Report. (2006). West Chester, PA: Chester County Cares

"Chester County, Pennsylvania." Wikipedia. (2008) Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_County,_Pennsylvania
U.S. Census Bureau & Chester County QuickFacts (2008). Retrieved from
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42029.html

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