Thursday, April 30, 2009

Quick update

The implementation of the strategic plan is done. Stay tuned later today for a snapshot of the implementation phase of the plan. Plus, the inside scoop of the actual events! They were full of surprises.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

"Small Steps to a Healthier Life"


"Pequeños Pasos Para Una Vida Saludable"

Small Steps to a healthier life is the message behind the walking campaign in the elementary schools of Westwood. The Westwood schools include Castro Elementary, Munroe Elementary and Knapp Elementary.
The mission is to encourage kids to walk and integrate physical activity as part of their daily lives. Moreover, the program also seeks to increase health awareness throughout the communities of Westwood.

Why walk to school?
  • It is a physical activity
  • It is an opportunity to teach kids how to walk safely
  • Keeps kids healthy
  • It promotes the safety of the community

“Walking Wednesday” and "Trotting Thursdays" is the name of the programs that will kick off April 29th and 30th. Kids will be encouraged to show their school spirit by wearing the school colors and walking with their parents to school. If walking to school is not an option for some kids they can also enjoy a fun morning walking in school grounds. They will get healthy snacks and participate in a walking competition between all classes. The class with the most walkers in the month will get a special party!

There will be volunteers tallying children who walked to school and giving them stamps. There will also be a table set up in the main playground to provide kids with healthy snacks and give everyone health education materials.

The will be so much happening that i would ruin the surprise by writing about it all. So please, join us if you can on Wednesday April 29th at 8:00 am at Munroe Elementary or at 8:30 at Knapp Elementary. There will also be a "Trotting Thursday" on the 30th of April at Castro Elementary.

Stay tune for details on the execution of our strategic plan and more!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Project #4 - The final project!

So we have made it this far and we are all really excited for this new project yet a bit burnt out.

In this project we will be working with Live Well Colorado, The Colorado Health foundation, and Kaiser Permanente. Our mission is to work with kids from three elementary schools in west central Denver to encourage healthy activities like walking on a daily basis. One of our main objectives is to get parents involved in creating this healthier lifestyle for their children.

Now, that is all I can reveal for now but stay tune for the next posts to find out more!

The end of the CHFA project part 2

The day of the presentation had come. I was pretty nervous and i have to say that obsessing over the marketing plan day and night for the past week did not help.

The presentation started and everything seemed to go pretty smoothly. We were getting our points across clearly and consistently throughout the presentation. Personally, since working with Jesse on the last recycling project I have learned the art of "winging" presentations as he called it. :) Now, it does not mean being unprepared but rather speaking without notes just letting the knowledge of everything you have done and created flow out. This has made a huge difference in the quality of my presentation skills.

After we finished the presentation we had the longest Q&A sessions thus far. Shortly after we also received some feed back on what we did well and what we could have improved on.

Throughout these projects i keep on learning the importance of keeping a constant flow of communication with the organizations we are working with. The importance of research in a marketing plan and presenting the sources of this information to create more credibility.

Overall, this project has been extremely regarding I think for everyone involved. It has brought great insights to all parties involved. In the end although we had areas we could have definitely improved on I'm pleased with what we put together in the short amount of time.

Monday, April 6, 2009

The end of the CHFA project part 1

This was certainly a tricky project. At first glance when I heard of the project it seemed like a very straightforward easy project. In fact I jumped at the idea of building a marketing plan. I felt like it would not only give me more experience in my field (marketing) but that it would make a difference in the community and in the economy perhaps.


The Confusion:


We started out pretty well it seemed like we were each given our part and felt how we fitted in the project. However, like everyone knows not everything goes according to plan and so the jobs that were in the beginning clear began to fade away. There was a sense of no direction and no momentum on the project. I decided I had to get the project moving so I decided to take on the marketing plan and take initiative by contacting the people we had as resources for information.


The Journey:


Meeting with people - I started setting up appointments to meet with people and get all the information we needed to figure out a direction for the marketing plan. This definitely gave me a clarification on the project and exactly what was needed in the marketing plan.


Researching & Brainstorming – I began researching tools and systems that would not only help the current marketing strategy that the Colorado Foreclosure Hotline was using but also created a new Marketing system. The marketing system would be based on the educated demographics we were targeting, the need for confidentiality and the continuous accessibility to educational resources for homeowners.


Building the marketing plan – This was by far the most time consuming and hardest task I have taken on in the whole Apprentice competition. I had to bring together all of the research information into a solid plan that can reach not only the target demographic but also be used in other marketing efforts by the organization. For about a week or so I woke up to work on the marketing plan and went to bed still thinking about it. Nevertheless, in the end the objective had been met there was a vision for a marketing system, the weaknesses and strengths of the current system had been identified, and the only thing left was to implement and element of the plan.


The Team:

After going with me to meet with Silvina Sansot, Jeaninne took it upon herself to research the demographics to put together the marketing plan. She also put together the budget of all the tools the marketing strategy would have.

After we decided to include a new website as part of the marketing system. Rachel put her web building skills to work and created a great page tailored to our mission of reaching our target demographics but also provide easily accessible education to homeowners.


When I finished the marketing plan I still had some missing parts of the puzzle. Fortunately, Jesse stepped up to the plate and brought another marketing vision that helped piece together the marketing puzzle. This was proof to me of how well we work together in these kinds of projects. Not only do we support each other but we compliment each others strengths and weaknesses. In the end the marketing plan became very solid and ready to be presented to CHFA.


At this point Chantay already had the basic structure for the PowerPoint she just needed everyone’s part to be presented. Well this was easier said than done. It became another full day of work consisting of making last minute changes to the PowerPoint and the budget. We were tying loose ends and getting everything ready for the presentation, and everyone was burned out by this point.


Stay tune next post is the presentation and what I learned from the whole project.

Felipe