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I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INITIATING
The Boys and Girls Club of Larimer County has a purpose to serve kids whose
parents are unable to watch them after school. The club is located in Fort Collins
and consists of nearly 60 kids who all come from a family that is socioeconomically
challenged. Our team set out to make an amazing experience for the kids. We
decided to take the kids to Urban Air Trampoline Park on a day when they weren’t
at school. This would not only give the kids an amazing experience, but it would
also give the parents a better alternative to leaving their kids home alone.

PLANNING AND ORGANIZING

When planning and organizing the event it is crucial that we had a setlist of
goals for our project. The goals helped us evaluate the success of the project. Our
first goal was to have all of us volunteer at the club every Monday during the weeks
leading up to the event and after. The purpose was to meet the kids and build
positive relationships with them before the event. Our next goal was to work with
companies to have the entire event funded by donations, as well as food and
transportation to and from Urban Air.
We also set ourselves up for success by assigning roles and responsibilities
for the planning and coordination of the event. Taylor was responsible for
coordinating the field trip, Dillon was in charge of handling donations, and Cameron
worked with companies and restaurants to coordinate the donation of food for the
event.
In order to track our progress, we also created milestones. Our first was to
receive funding for the event through donations. Our next milestone was to start
volunteering at the club weekly. The final milestone we set was to host a successful
field trip. Once we reached these milestones our project had been completed
successfully.
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EXECUTION
To execute the event, we first had to get in contact with the Boys and Girls
Club and begin volunteering there. In order to pull off the event, we also had to
make contact with local companies that could donate money to fund the event.
Luckily, we had contacts with some local companies and set up meetings with
them. We then worked with our school to get busing for transportation to and from
the event. Once our bus request was in, we gave out 3 permission slips for Urban
Air, Boys and Girls Club, and Poudre School District. Finally, we hosted our event on
the 11th of November with 60 kids and chaperones.

MONITORING AND CONTROLLING

Our project was monitored with several checklists and spreadsheets. We
made a spreadsheet for the budget, which we used to separate how much each
part of the field trip would cost, and how much money was given from each
organization.
We had a few issues with our project involving volunteering. We had some
issues turning in our volunteer forms and it resulted in us beginning late. This
caused issues in us getting to know the kids, but we adapted and made the best of
the situation. There was also a problem with the Urban Air the night before. They
had failed to inform us that they would not be open until later in the day and that
our field trip would have to be moved. We, luckily, worked with them closely and
were able to fix the problem and held our event on the planned day.

CLOSING THE PROJECT

In closing our project we met all of our key metrics, including raising the
donated goods, services and funds. We also learned several lessons about the
execution of an event.
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II. INITIATING

A. Statement of the Problem

Boys and Girls Clubs of Larimer County originally

started as the “Harmony Homework Club”. The club was

started by two retired teachers to help students who did

not have enough academic support after school. Harmony

Club then grew into a Boys and Girls Club, because they

had so many kids who needed after school support. This

club helps students who come from a lower socioeconomic

status with after school support and mentoring. Boys and

Girls Clubs focus on enabling students to reach their full

potential and to become the best citizens they can be. Boys

and Girls Club is committed to being fully inclusive and

accepting of others. Boys and Girls Club of Larimer County is

the only after school program in Larimer County that

includes meals, academic mentoring and positive youth

development for only $20 a year. The biggest problem at

Boys and Girls Club Larimer County is the need for more

volunteers and help with the kids. Once a week, after school,

we volunteered at BGC with the kids for homework help and

to help put on activities for the club.

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B. Project Scope

A lot of kids at the Boys and Girls Club have working parents, and no older

siblings, so no one can look after them when they are not in school. In order to help

with this problem, we volunteered at BGC one day a week. We have also planned a

trip to take the club to Urban Air Trampoline Park. This trip gave the kids something

to do while they weren't at school and

their guardians were unavailable. They

were only able to use a limited amount of

the offered activities because of the cost.

The trip took place on Monday, November

11th, 2019 and allowed the kids 4 hours of fun. The benefits of volunteering at the

club included providing academic support through volunteer work and tutoring at

the Boys and Girls Club, as well as benefiting the kids by giving them an enjoyable

time on their day off of school.

III. PLANNING AND ORGANIZING

A. Project Goals

In order to have a successful outcome of our project, it was important to set

goals. Our first goal was to volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club at least once a week

in order to build positive personal connections with the kids. We hoped that by
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volunteering with the kids, we could build up personal confidence and character in

the kids, as well as provide emotional support for them. We also supported them

with homework and school help in order to help them learn and grow their

scholarly ability.

Our goals were set so that the Boys

and Girls Club could get the most enjoyable

experience while we were with them. We

took the kids on a field trip to a local

trampoline park on a day that elementary

and middle schoolers did not have school.

The demographics of the Boys and Girls Club of Larimer County ranges from

kindergarten to 8th grade, so planning a day where the elementary and middle

schools were not in session worked best because we provided them with

entertaining activities on their day off.

Our final goal was to coordinate with local companies to have food for lunch

donated for the field trip as well as busing. We hoped to have the entire trip funded

as well as lunch for the whole group.

B. Human Resource Management Plan

There are several different responsibilities for setting up a field trip. There

was coordination with companies for lunch donation and how the event would run.

The responsibilities were split up between each member, not including the actual
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volunteer work that came with the project. Taylor, Cameron, and Dillon, all

volunteered at the event at Urban Air.

Taylor was in charge of coordinating the field trip. This included talking to

places that the team was interested in having the field trip location be. The

communication was mostly done via email and phone to set up the event day and

the pricing of the event. She also reached out to local entertainment centers such

as The Summit and Urban Air. The hope for this project so far was to have the

entertainment centers donate the time and provide free admissions for the field

trip.

Dillon took lead on collecting donations to fund the field trip. He was in

charge of contacting and setting up meetings with multiple companies to discuss

donating money to the Boys and Girls Club. Other responsibilities that came with

this part of the project include calculating the cost that was needed to fund the trip,

as well as any other costs and deciding what to do with any extra funds after the

trip. To start, we set up meetings with Front Range Fire Protection Company and Ed

Carroll Motor Company in order to see how much money each company would give

us.

Cameron was in charge of communicating with

restaurants for catering. The team was interested in

contacting either Chick-Fil-A or a local pizza company

with the hopes that they would provide a meal for

everyone going on the trip. If those companies did not provide donations, our
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backup plan was to use any leftover funds to pay for a catering platter. Regardless,

food would be provided for each and every member going on the trip that day.

C. Schedule

a. Milestone

MILESTONE 1

The first milestone our

team planned to reach was to

receive funding and donations for

our project. We talked with

multiple companies including Ed

Carroll Motor Company and Front Range Fire Protection in order to make enough

money to entirely fund the field trip. We also hoped to receive catering from

Chick-Fil-A. Our plan was to take the kids to Urban Air for a field trip, and we hoped

to receive some sort of discount

or event space to be able to take

them there. Once all of these

things were sorted out and we had a price set for funding, we met with the

companies. Once we had the desired funding for the project, we successfully

achieved this milestone.

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MILESTONE 2

As a part of our project, we volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club, working

with the kids to provide extra support in their lives. Our second milestone was the

first time we volunteered at the club. They rely solely on volunteers, so if nobody is

willing to volunteer, then there will be no club. Our contribution to the club allowed

them to continue serving the local children of the community. The first time

volunteering for us meant a lot, it was the start of something that was life-changing

for us and hopefully the members of the community as well.

MILESTONE 3

The third and biggest part of the project was the field trip. The field trip

happened on November 11. We took the kids to Urban Air for 4 hours and a

catered lunch consisting of food donated from a local company and food catered

from Chick-Fil-A. This milestone was the biggest milestone of the project. There was

lots of planning and coordinating that lead to this project. There was very little

room for error in planning the event with Urban Air and the BGC.

B. Timeline to Reach Each Milestone

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MILESTONE 1

Our first milestone was to receive our sponsorships for the event. We wanted

to have completed all meetings by mid-October. This does not include actually

receiving funding. We hoped to have all of our funding by November 1st so that we

could have the entire trip prepped and ready to go about a week before the actual

date.

MILESTONE 2

The second timeline was related to volunteering for the club. We expected to

volunteer every Monday for the club and our first day volunteering was Monday,

October 14th. That way we would have more than enough time to get familiar with

the members of the club before the day of the field trip.

MILESTONE 3

The expected date of having everything set up for the field trip was

November 5th. We wanted to have all the funding in order, lunch donated and

everything set up at Urban Air, this gave us the ability to problem solve if anything

were to go wrong also and meant we wouldn't have any stress the night before the

event.

D. Key Metrics

Our first key metric was to have an 85%

increase in donations for lunch, busing, and

the field trip event. Last year $700 was donated

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and we wanted to have at least $1300 donated to cover for the event. If any funds

were left over, we wanted to give it to the club so the club could get new things for

the kids to enjoy.

Another key metric we had was the donation of lunch for the kids. We did not

receive a full donation of lunch but did

receive part of our lunch donated. Due to the

complications with Chick-Fil-A, we purchased

chicken sandwiches from them. Chips,

cookies, and drinks were donated by Crew

Room Tax Services. This was one of the most

important parts of the day, where the kids

were provided free food. Most of the kids will

not have access to easy, enjoyable food.

Our last key metric was to have a quality volunteer experience and a quality

field trip event. We wanted to make sure the kids had a good experience every time

we volunteered and to make sure that they had an amazing time on our field trip. If

any bump in the road happened while we were volunteering or running the trip, we

wanted to make sure that we figured it out smoothly and quickly without ruining

the quality of the field trip.

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E. Risk Management Plan

Potential Issues Impact on Project Our Response

Snow Day If there is a large If this happens, we will

snowstorm, the bussing
will get canceled, and
therefore our trip will
follow suit and be
canceled.
communicate with the
club and companies to
reschedule the event for
a better date.

Funding Issues Since we are relying We have contacted

solely on donations from
companies, our plan to
take the kids on a field
trip to Urban Air will only
work if we receive those
donations.
multiple companies to
guarantee the payment
will be met. We also
made a backup plan to
reach out to 3 other
companies if funds are
not met.

Event Misbehavior Urban Air does have a
large number of places
where the kids could get
hurt. There is a possibility
of them misbehaving
during the event which
would be unsafe.
If the kids do not follow
the safety rules in place
they will not be allowed
to participate in the
activities for the rest of
the day.

F. Proposed Project Budget

Our project was not able to happen without the kind donations of several

companies. Asking several different companies to donate was a very challenging

task to complete. There are several companies that already give to BGC, so finding
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companies that did not donate was a hard task. We found several companies with

parent connections to help with donations. Urban Air helped out with admissions

and gave us a discounted ticket rate that included three hours of play and the

special Urban Air branded socks for the kids to use at the park.

Monetary Donations In-Kind Donations

Ed Carroll Motor Company - $600 Crew Room Tax Services ($60 donation
value)

Front Range Fire Protection - $600 Discounted Tickets at Urban Air ($7 off
per kid)

IV. EXECUTION

The first step in putting on this event was getting in touch with our local Boys

and Girls Club. Once we were in contact with them, we talked to the lead

coordinator, Christine Jirsa, about what she wanted the event to look like and the

best things for the kids. After our meeting with Christine, we brainstormed

locations for the event. We chose Urban Air, an indoor trampoline park that is

located close to the club.

Taylor then got in contact with Urban Air and figured out the field trip ticket

rate and got the waivers for the parents to sign. Once we had all the details for the

field trip, we requested bussing from the school district. After the bus request was

sent, we figured out how much money we needed to be donated from different

companies. Cameron and Dillon both had connections with local companies that
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donated to nonprofits, so we then held meetings with the companies to explain the

project, ask for donations, and explain what the money would be used for. Crew

Room Tax Services donated chips, cookies, and bottles of water to go with the

lunch.

V. MONITORING AND CONTROLLING

A. Monitoring

Our project was monitored with several checklists and spreadsheets. We

made a spreadsheet for the budget, which we separated based on how much each

part of the field trip was, and how much money was given from each organization.

Controlling

One of the issues we encountered was the time it took to volunteer at the

club. This was an issue because it made it more difficult to get to know all of the

kids before taking them on a field trip. Luckily, the kids at the Boys and Girls Club

are very well behaved and very respectful which made it easy for us to get along

with the kids.

We had another problem occur the day before the event that we had to deal

with. The night before our event’s planned date, a contact at Urban Air informed us
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that they wouldn’t be open until 4:00 P.M. on the day of the planned event. The first

step in solving this problem was getting in contact with our lead advisor. We then

called our advisor and we talked with him about how to fix this. Two of our advisors

then called Urban Air and expressed our frustrations. Our advisor talked about how

rescheduling would not work, because we promised 60 kids and families that this

field trip would happen, and we had busses reserved and catering ordering and

paid for. Urban Air contacted its employees and was able to make our event

happen. The only benefit of this bump was that Urban Air was closed to the general

public and it was open to just the Boys and Girls Club but we didn’t have to pay the

steep fee for renting out all of Urban Air.

VI. CLOSING THE PROJECT

A. Evaluation of Key Metrics

The monetary donations we received was

$1200, and our event had a total cost of $1172.

Although we did not get an 85% increase in

money donated, we did have enough money to

put on the event. The total price at Urban Air

was $768, which paid for 48 kids to participate

and for 9 adults to chaperone.

Due to complications with Chick Fil A, they were not able to donate the food

for us, but we were still able to order catering from there. Crew Room Tax Services
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were kind enough to donate chips, cookies, and waters to accompany the

Chick-Fil-A sandwich lunch. We ordered 65 chicken sandwiches which came to a

total of $270 for the budgeting.

Lastly, the field trip ran very smoothly for the kids, besides a couple of bloody

noses. There were several bumps in the road with the execution of the event. About

14 hours before the event happened, Taylor received a text saying that the event

would not be able to happen due to the location not being open, but the business

had known about the event for a month and they allowed us to pay a down

payment on the event. After a call to Urban Air, the event was able to take place,

considering the fact that a down payment on the event had already been placed.

The event was able to happen, and the kids never even knew about the bump in

the road.

B. Lessons Learned

When initiating the project, we learned to reach out to the club sooner and

have our paperwork submitted over the summer, rather than attempting to submit

during the school year. We would have liked to have been able to start volunteering

earlier but we couldn’t due to the earlier complications with paperwork submission.

In the planning phase, we recommend to reach out to several companies for

catering. We emailed Chick-Fil-A several times about catering and we did not

receive a response. Due to how closely this happened to the event we just got
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catering from them. We learned to not hope that one company would donate food,

it would have been nice to have a safety net of a guaranteed lunch.

In the execution phase, we learned to start planning and submitting forms

earlier, such as turning in bus request forms earlier and getting in contact with

Urban Air sooner. It would have been nice to have these things done sooner so we

could make an accurate budget, this way we would've been able to ask

organizations for the right funding and not have to worry about going over budget

and having to ask more organizations for money to cover the event.

The biggest lesson we learned happened in the monitoring and controlling

phase. When Urban Air told us the night before that they would be closed, it sent us

into a panic, it forced us to problem solve in the most professional and efficient

way.

C. Recommendations For Future Projects

Our biggest recommendation for a future project would be to start

volunteering at the club earlier. We were not able to start volunteering at the club

until about 3 weeks before the event due to paperwork issues. There were several

days when we tried to turn in our volunteer paperwork but no one was there to

accept the paperwork so this set us back a couple of weeks to start volunteering.

The volunteering would have made the event run smoother because we would

have known all the kids’ names.

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The next recommendation would be to run the event at a place that would

have the guarantee of being open on a school day. Urban Air is usually open on

school days but at 4 PM. We were told Urban Air would be open because there was

no school for elementary and middle schoolers. If the event would have taken place

at a different location then we would have had no stress before the event.

We also recommend that the volunteers get to know as many kids as

possible during your time volunteering at the club. The better the kids know you

the easier it becomes for them to listen to us. During the event, kids that we didn’t

build connections with wouldn’t listen to us as much and we sometimes needed

help from the other Boys and Girls Club volunteers. Going to volunteer as early as

possible will help with this as well. Below is the timeline that we wished we

followed, so we would have more time with the kids at the club and more time to

figure out all the exact details for the field trip.
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VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Boys & Girls Clubs of Larimer County.” Boys & Girls Clubs of Larimer County,

www.begreatlarimer.org/.

“Catering Menu Items For.” Chick, www.chick-fil-a.com/catering.

“Kid Friendly Family Fun Attractions in Fort Collins, CO.” Urban Air Trampoline and

Adventure Park,

www.urbanairtrampolinepark.com/locations/colorado/fort-collins.