Paper plane contest raises money for Peru and Chile
The Planes for Peru paper airplane-throwing contest raised about $1,100 to set up micro-loan accounts in Peru and Chile Friday, drawing a diverse assortment of competitors and plane designs.
The contest was held as part of an MHR 3110 Managing Organizations and People class project, in which the class is divided into several groups to hold fundraisers or do work projects to raise money for the micro-loan accounts, which will provide small loans to entrepreneurs in Peru and Chile to help them start their businesses.
Reed Merrick, a senior majoring in horticulture and the CEO of The Elite Eight, the group that organized the paper airplane-throwing contest, said the idea came to him in the shower. He said once they knew what they would do to raise money, the group had to hurry to put on the event before spring football practice began in Romney Stadium, where the contest was held. The group organized the event in just two weeks.
“I had a great group that just kind of grabbed onto the idea and got everything organized quickly,” Merrick said.
Many of the contestants employed the same kind of haste in folding their paper airplanes, including first-place winner Brad Isom, a sophomore majoring in biochemistry, who won $200 for getting his plane closest to the target in the second round.
“I just got my instructions off the Internet right before I came here. I threw it out there and it went in the bull’s-eye,” Isom said. “I’m definitely surprised.”
Isom said he hadn’t thought yet about what he would do with the prize money but said he would probably just put it in the bank and pay bills.
The second-place winner, a boy of about 10 years old named Luke, may not find his prize as useful. He won an all-in-one fax machine donated by Staples.
“I told him to have fun at Christmas time faxing letters to Santa,” said Clay Murray, a senior majoring in business.
Third place went to Marie Lyon, a sophomore math and statistics education major, who won a $50 gift card to Lee’s Marketplace. Sixty-five door prizes were also awarded, and participants were treated to slices of pizza donated by Little Caesar’s.
Jamie Rothstein, a junior in the aviation technology/professional pilot program, said flying paper airplanes is quite different from flying metal ones.
“I didn’t do too well, crashed and burned,” Rothstein said. “I fly regular airplanes a lot better than I fly these things.”
Still, he said, he thought the event supported a good cause.
“It’s a great cause,” Rothstein said. “It’s really noble to do anything to help out other people, especially people with less things than we have.”
David Herrmann, the professor who teaches the class, said the idea for the micro-loan accounts comes from Muhammed Yunus, an economist from Bangladesh who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize in economics for the grassroots idea of giving small loans to would-be business owners who don’t have the established credit to get a traditional bank loan.
Herrmann said the system has already been successful in India.
“It’s been very identifiable, very trackable, the results of these loans,” he said.
Herrmann said many of the loans will go to women to establish home-based businesses, generally selling arts and crafts. He said loans may start out at a few hundred dollars, and then, if they are repaid, may increase up to $1,000. The concept allows the people who take out the loans to develop a line of credit.
“(Yunus’) whole concept is stop giving them money. Let’s make them responsible,” Herrmann said.
A group of students from the class will travel to the countries this summer to help set up the accounts. Herrmann said to establish an account requires $5,000 to $7,000, so the number of accounts the class will set up will be determined by how much money is raised overall. When the students aren’t there, Herrmann said the accounts will be managed by the Hope Alliance, a group that provides humanitarian assistance in poor countries.
Herrmann said after the loans have been issued, USU economics students will examine whether there has been an economic impact in the areas.
Herrmann said the project is for a good cause, but it also provides good training for students in business, human resources and management.
“The idea is students are put into a group. They have to go through a planning process. The question is, did they involve outside people, exhibit leadership, set up control procedures?” Herrmann said. “So they have kind of a hands-on experience with the general principles they learned in class.”
Herrmann said groups have been encouraged to do labor that is needed anyway, such as window washing, to ensure that the community isn’t saturated with fundraising efforts for the micro-loan accounts. Still, he said, many groups are hosting upcoming charity events for the cause, including a benefit concert from pianist Jon Schmidt, a comedy night and a 5K run. Anyone interested in donating to the micro-loan accounts should watch for those events.
-jenbeasley@cc.usu.edu