College of Business Administration

GROUP MEMBERS:

Melissa Fox
Erik Carvajal
David Butler
Linh Doan
Blake Richards
Chris Walton
Dustin DeLaMontanya

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

In order to fulfill our social change project requirement, we decided to do a local food drive. We collaborated with Special Delivery San Diego who has been distributing food to AIDS patients and other people living with life-threatening illnesses since 1991. These AIDS patients are often too ill to leave home; therefore, they require assistance from organizations such as “Special Delivery” that can deliver meals to their homes. Our objective for the food drive was to raise money and collect nonperishable food items for “Special Delivery.” We also wanted to raise awareness that there are people with life-threatening diseases who need help from others.

After meeting with the coordinator, Ruth Henricks, we found out how the organization operated, which helped us gain a clear perceptive on how important the organization is to these AIDS patients. Mrs. Henricks began making meals for AIDS patients in the 1980s after noticing that one of her customers with AIDS stopped coming into her restaurant. She figured if her customer did not come into the restaurant to eat, then he probably was not eating at all. Soon after, Mrs. Henricks decided to dedicate most of her life to providing food services for AIDS patients. The organization primarily depends on donations, grants, and the hard work of volunteers. Mrs. Henricks was delighted that we had chosen to work with her organization since they need all the contributions they can get.

Throughout the project we thought about how we could apply ethical frameworks to our cause. It was appropriate to apply Utilitarianism because the project promoted happiness to those the greater good. The cause also yielded more benefits than harm for the community. It was also appropriate to apply the Justice Theory since we did not take actions that would cause more harm than good. The cause did not leave anybody in society worse off afterwards. Moreover, the Ethic of Care was also relevant in our project given that we learned to recognize the moral worth of relationships.

We decided to host the food drive at the last SDSU basketball game of the season since the event pulls in a crowd of thousands of people. We coordinated with the staff of Cox Arena, who allowed us to locate ourselves just in front of the main entrance. To publicize the event, we contacted several media outlets. We managed to get two articles in the Union Tribune mentioning the event. KGB radio-station also mentioned the event, as well as the Daily Aztec. Local news stations 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 also broadcasted the food drive. We received a tremendous amount of publicity, which attracted the bulk of the people who came to make donations.

In order to motivate people to make donations, we held a raffle using several prizes that were donated. These prizes included signed basketballs from Kobe Bryant, Shaquile O’Neal, and the Walton family, a skateboard from ValSurf, apparel from Sierra Nevada, and gift certificates from Ricejones Restaurant. People participated in the raffle by either purchasing raffle tickets or by bringing in food and toiletry items in exchange for tickets. The raffle prizes highly inspired people to donate, but many people also came to make donations without intending to win a prize. After the closing of the raffle, we determined the winners and Cox Arena posted that information on the scoreboard in order for the winners to claim their prizes.

The event was a total success due to the tremendous support we got from the community. We sold over 800 raffle tickets, which accumulated to over $1500 in cash and 2700 food items. All of the raffle prizes and supplies that we used were all donated to us. Not only did our group come out of the experience feeling good about ourselves, but we also had the opportunity to make a wonderful contribution to the community.