Phil Sargeson’s Cereal for Coffee Fundraiser has taken the Wynnum Manly region by storm. Featured in a number of media articles, including a live interview on ABC Radio Brisbane, Phil and his wife, Samara, are now looking to expand this concept into a variety of other regions and want to help you run it.
This year, eager to support chaplaincy in a tangible way, Phil discovered breakfast clubs and the benefit that this can have on a child’s education.
“It came about because my wife’s a primary school teacher and she sees kids day-in-and-day-out who come to school with Tim-Tams or other foods which aren’t suitable for breakfast, or they haven’t had any breakfast at all.”
“And it made us both think about why this is happening in a first world country in today’s society, that in our own backyard children are coming to school without food.”
The demand is certainly high for this kind of assistance and Phil found a very real way to resource chaplains in his local area to fight this far-reaching epidemic.
“I was doing a bit of research online about how we could help local chaplaincy and found a café in Auckland, New Zealand that runs a similar program. This one café would, for one or two hours, accept a can of food in exchange for a coffee and they managed to raise about 250 cans. And that was just one café for a couple hours.
“So I was thinking why don’t we run with this style of fundraiser but with cereal? Cereal was the obvious choice because it can be stored for a while and used when needed, unlike many other breakfast foods. We talked to a few people and chaplains and said ‘how can we make this happen for you guys?’.”
From here, Phil was able to go about organising this fundraiser and approaching local cafés to be a part of this reworked initiative.
“When we started to approach the cafes, we were only expecting a few but we managed to sign up nine cafes in two days. Some really high profile ones too. One of the cafes is recognised as amongst the best cafes in Brisbane, according to Beanhunter. That was really great to get them on board.”
“The fundraiser was held the 22nd of September. But in the week and a half leading up to it, people were already dropping off boxes of cereal. We would drive past some of the cafes and pick up a few boxes in the week leading up to it.”
“In total, we collected 450 boxes of cereal. The aim was 1000 before it but I’m really glad we didn’t collect that many because we didn’t have the space to store 1000. Next time, we’d love to collect 1000 or more.”
The appeal of this form of fundraiser is not lost on Phil and those cafés involved in collecting the cereal.
“I think that there’s no money exchanging is quite good because we don’t have to worry about charity and DGR status or things like that. It’s just, literally, here’s a box of cereal, there’s your coffee. A box of cereal can range from $2-3 right through to $5-7 so it’s up to the individual how much they spend. Most people went out and bought really good quality cereal.”
“We had the vision and we knew what the goal was but we had no idea how it would all pan out. Obviously, you’re going out on a limb for the chaplains. Especially when you’re approaching cafes to give away free coffee. It’s one or two hours of their trade. Their livelihood. It’s approximately $1000 that they’re donating if you add it up as $3 per cup for a couple hours.”
Phil and his wife own and operate a design and printing studio from home so they were able to support the project by printing promotional material for free and use those materials to promote the event throughout their district. This aided the fabulous results that they saw.
“We got posters and flyers printed. We funded that. We had a couple of donations too from people close to us to help fund the printing. We printed about 5000 flyers and about 3000 went to the schools. All the schools accepted between 200 and 600 flyers depending on the size of the school. They all promoted it online and all the flyers went home with the students. We also stuck up all the posters in shopping centres around Wynnum area. So everyone got really behind it.”
Getting the principals and teaching staff on side for this event was a very intentional process led by Phil and local LCC Chair Tom Andrews. They made sure that the principals were notified of the event and were able to give their feedback on how they believed the event should be run.
“Talking to the principals, ranging from a 2 minute meeting to a half hour meeting, they all loved it. Some already had breakfast clubs and it helped them out, and others are looking to start one so it was able to get them well-resourced to open one up and trial it.”
Phil is very enthusiastic about rolling this initiative out within other districts throughout Queensland, so if you’re interested in getting on board with this exciting venture, please call Phil Sargeson on (07) 3396 0645 or email engage@cerealforcoffee.co.
TIPS:
- Make contact with local politicians or councillors
- Many love to be involved with community initiatives or will at least advertise it on their social media accounts. And this contact will keep them updated about what chaplaincy related events are happening in their area.
- Set an informed, measurable goal for the event
- Even if you do not achieve it, this will allow you to assess why that wasn’t the case and improve how you approach it for next time.
- Cast a wide net when looking for supporters, volunteers and participants
- Phil and his wife called over 20 cafes to get 9 to participate. Expect to get some rejection and factor this in to your plans.
- Approach local media
- This can be a really great way to get free advertising and public awareness of your fundraiser, but before any media interviews or coverage, contact SU QLD’s Communications Team for briefing.
- Include principals and teaching staff as much as possible in the planning process
- Involve the school administration from the earliest opportunity so that they can notify you about how it will work best for them
- Be respectful to those you are approaching to donate resources
- This one seems like a no-brainer, however it’s crucial to maintaining a fundraiser long term. Go out of your way to honour their requests because this will show them you care.