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The grilled cheese sandwich may have been a childhood lunch staple, but now it’s bringing the power of profit to a fundraising effort at the University of Maine.
The Rotaract Club, a service organization at the university, hand-delivered the cheesy treat to students living on campus and College Avenue on Wednesday for $1 each. The group took orders for the sandwiches — with a choice of white or wheat bread — all week and up to delivery time.
A portion of the 20 active members of Rotaract gathered in the Campus Activities Board office to prepare the grilled cheeses and worked to distribute the orders around campus. At least one person was in the office to continue taking orders through text and instant messages in the allotted time slot from 5 to 8 p.m.
The club had over 60 orders when members began to prepare the sandwiches. Ali Dunn, the group’s president, said she received a number of text messages asking for delivery to class, then afterthoughts deciding pre-class delivery would be better.
Most of the orders were to residence halls though.
The idea came from the group’s advisor, Justina Demott, who did a similar fundraiser at her undergraduate college in New York.
“We just decided to try it and see how it worked out,” Dunn said. “We hope to get it to grow over the years.”
Falling in a week strewn with last minute tests and assignments in preparation for spring break, the group thought grilled cheese delivery would be a welcome accommodation for students.
“We thought it would be a great de-stressifier,” said David Brown, a member of Rotaract.
The proceeds from the sandwich sales will quickly be put to use this spring break. On Saturday, Rotaract will depart on its annual trip to New Orleans to do service work for a week.
Rotaract is a nationwide service club for people aged 18 to 30, although the UMaine chapter consists of only college-aged members. Sponsored by the Rotary Club, there are more than 7,000 members of Rotaract in 163 locations across the world.
UMaine’s chapter is sponsored by the Old Town Rotary Club. The organizations work closely together, sponsoring events such as a hunters’ breakfast in the fall.
“It’s probably one of our most fun events,” Dunn said. “We are really close to them.”
The UMaine chapter of Rotaract does mostly local service work in the greater Bangor area. The group works with Manna Inc., Crossroads Ministries and events on campus such as Race for the Cure.
“We do a lot of little projects in the community,” said Meredith Atkinson, vice president of the group. “Spring break is something we kind of do on the side.”
For the past three years, the group has been using a week of spring break to volunteer with Operation Nehemiah, a non-profit organization in New Orleans that continues the cleanup from Hurricane Katrina.
Several colleges work with the operation during spring break. Previous projects have included home repair, fence construction, roofing and even a bowling alley construction project.
“There’s a lot more help needed [in New Orleans] than people think,” Atkinson said.
“It happened and then people forgot about it,” Dunn added. Atkinson explained the last time the group was in New Orleans, members were surprised by how much work still needed to be done. She described the devastation that still dominated the ninth ward — abandoned houses, boarded-up windows and empty streets.
The recent Super Bowl win for the New Orleans Saints and the aftermath of Mardi Gras celebrations are exciting bonuses of the trip for Rotaract.
The group still had a way to go in its fundraising efforts earlier this week. On Tuesday, it was still almost $1,000 short.
The grilled cheese sale was not its only unorthodox fundraising effort this semester. The group held a raffle for a kayak that brought in $190 and used a traveling bake sale that brought in $285. Members brought a cart of baked goods around campus to gather more attention and reach people near classrooms and offices when they had their wallets with them.
Old Town Rotary Club also donated $550 earlier this week to help with trip costs.
“We’re just raising as much as we can to go on this trip,” Dunn said.
