Sweet Hope

Oh hai!  Remember me?  The lady that writes this blog.  Yep, that’s the one.  I finished.  A day early.  Did you hear me?

A DAY EARLY!

That’s right.  I said it, I finished the largest project I’ve ever done in my life, short of adopting a child from Russia.  And I did it A DAY EARLY.  Really, it bears repeating.  Granted, I still have to sit here and wait for the postman to show up and make a few deliveries, but I don’t have to do anything else.

So you want to know some numbers?  I bet you do.  If not, you get them anyway.

Our gross sales plus donations were $7646.  Our profit is $6023.  We are still only sending $3000 to Mirnoe.  I know that may seem disappointing, but there is a reason.  1) that is what the board approved and 2) we have some large upcoming expenses in 2011 that we will need the money for.  Things like the 501c3 and filing our articles of incorporation.  We also would like to put on another non candy related event in 2011 and need the seed money for that.  Basically, we are becoming a real business with operating expenses.

Here are some more numbers.

I made 4790 truffles and 2684 caramels.  I did it with the help of 18 volunteers.  We boxed 740 individual boxes of candy to make up 140 individual orders.  78 boxes are getting mailed.  The rest were picked up or will be delivered.

Even more numbers:

14 pounds of butter

7 gallons of heavy cream

3 large bottles of corn syrup

1+ gallon of sweetened condensed milk

12 pounds of brown sugar

4 boxes of candy canes and

157 pounds of chocolate

has passed through this kitchen.

Most everyone stayed healthy.  The first day of candy making I had an allergy attack and the boy came down with a cold yesterday.  Otherwise it was fairly flawless.  There was the great Madras Curry Truffle incident of week #2 and the supposed we thought we made too many honey truffle scandal of Sunday #1, but nothing we couldn’t handle.  Or I should say, nothing a little booze couldn’t fix.

What worked?  The countless volunteers.  I couldn’t have done it without them.  A very well thought out schedule of events.  The use of a very large kitchen for one day.

What didn’t work?  Not enough curry powder and the curry powder supplier being in Seattle.  Trying to do truffles and caramels on the very large kitchen day.  It worked, but I’m not sure I’ll do that again.  Me working 2 jobs.

How did the brood of animals do?  Wonderful.  Busy was annoying as always, but she got to go to doggy daycare once a week.  The kittens…  They like tissue paper, and boxes, and bags.  For the most part they stayed out of the way, but trying to do any computer work with them around is nearly impossible.

In the end, I’m done.  A DAY EARLY.

***

Buried under a mountain of candy.

1600 1424 1330 1038 176! 0!! more truffles to make.

May have mental collapse.

Send booze.

***

I realize that people get tired of me talking about chocolates all of the time, but too bad, this is my blog and we’re not just talking chocolate here.  We’re talking helping children.  What don’t you like orphans?

To recap, here are a bunch of numbers…

Our current gross sales are $4612.  This includes the amount one of my sales people updates me on.  With donations we are at $4707.  We received a super big really giant order from an unnamed corporation for 130 boxes of mixed truffles.  That is a $1900 sale.  I would like this to be above and beyond any goal set.  To make the $4680 gross goal without the big order we still need to sell $1922.  We did about $1800 in the last week last year and this year many of our regular customers have not ordered.

What do we need to make?

458 boxes of candy.

That would be over 2800 truffles and over 1300 caramels.  If you want to know last year’s final numbers, here you go.

The numbers are higher so that means I need as many helpers as possible.  I’ve you’ve ever wanted to see how Sweet Hope gets from our kitchen to your door now is your opportunity.  If you aren’t comfortable being a stranger in my house we have another option.  On December 5th we are taking over a church kitchen and cranking out the candy.  If you live in the Puget Sound area (or Washington state… or anywhere for that matter) and want to help please email me.  Did I mention you get free candy?

I believe I have told you that I happen to panic the first week of Sweet Hope sales every year.  This year I promised myself that I would not panic.  It would all be fine.  I would leave it up to the ground work I’d laid and the wonderful sales people that were going to help me.  We would reach our goal with no problem and I would be calm for once.

Isn’t that a nice fantasy?

The reality… I’ve been panicking more than I’ve ever panicked in the past.  I haven’t gone back to see how many orders we had by this time last year.  I know the dollar amount, but not the number of individual orders.  This year… we only have 14.  While the dollar amount is much more important, that number of orders matters to me.  We had 73 total orders last year.  95 if you consider that 1 of the 73 consisted of about 22 different orders.

The financial goal we set this year was $4680 in gross sales.  I will admit that we are under $2000 away from hitting that goal.  That is all thanks to a Portland area business that purchased more 1 dozen boxes than we sold in 73 orders last year.  I can’t publicly thank the business, but the size of the order was totally unexpected (we anticipated them purchasing 1/2 dozen boxes).  We also will be making a special order for one local nursery *Gardensphere* who will be giving away a tasty little box of truffles with the first 100 Christmas trees purchased.  We have to make those truffles prior to Thanksgiving, but it all adds to the total.

With all of that I’m still panicking.  I wanted to make the goal without the aid of the “very large corporate order.”  I wanted the corporate order to be the icing on the cake.  At the very least, I wanted to send as much money as we sent last year.

Earlier this year I asked Galina if she would be able to get me photos of the children in Mirnoe.  The only images I have of them is from right after we sent the money last year.  I wanted to see how they’d grown.  Galina and Evelina traveled out to Mirnoe to visit with the director, Natasha, in October.  I had also asked Galina to talk with Natasha about what types of things they needed for the orphanage.  Natasha told her that they had planned to give the children a Christmas party (which is always part of the deal with us sending money), but in addition to that they would like to purchase a new rug for their gathering room along with chairs for the children to sit on.  If you look at the photos of the orphanage you will notice there only a very small rug and old and worn stadium style seats in their gathering room.  The floor is cold and bare and there is nowhere for them to sit.

Galina also informed me that Natasha would like to purchase vitamins for the children.  Food in Russia isn’t fortified like it is in the US and access to fresh fruits and vegetables is difficult in the winter and especially in such a remote area.  The children desperately need vitamins.

I think that knowing what the orphanage needs makes it slightly more difficult.  I want to be able to provide what they need.  This tiny orphanage has little opportunity for outside funding.  They get only their government allotted rubles.  There are 60-80 children who subsist on so little how can I break a promise?

My hope is that I’ve tugged on your heartstrings enough to encourage you to give a Christmas gift with a purpose this year.  You or a loved one gets a delicious box of candy, and a child gets hope.