A Big Day in Dairy Queen Land

Today was a big day in Dairy Queen land, both in the United States and in Canada. It was Children's Miracle Treat Day (CMN MTD).

This was the day where participating locations donated all proceeds from EACH "Blizzard" sold. The Dairy Queen which I am working at did participate. For those of you who are local to us, I'm not sure if our local DQ in our little town participated or not. I didn't notice anything (signs, etc.) tonight when I walked by.

Anyways, moving on....meet Elizabeth....





Elizabeth and her mom visited us at the DQ today for a couple of hours. Elizabeth is 9 years old and is about to start the 3rd grade next week. She's very talkative, and she let me know that she's in Girl Scouts. Elizabeth has Cerebral Palsy. Both Elizabeth and her family have received assistance from CMN -- either with needed equipment or medication (I'm not sure of the specifics).

That's what CMN does....they help sick kids and their families. The real beauty of CMN is that all of the donations they receive is 100% for kids and their families. All of the administrative costs are covered by the hospitals they represent. So, when I say that 100% of the proceeds from "Blizzards" go to kids and their families...that's exactly what it is.

We, at the DQ, tried to make today BIG! We had balloons for all of the kids -- as customers.



We had the "Buy a 'Blizzard' for CMN" on the readerboard.



Since last week, I had been visiting other businesses and offices in the area. I promoted the day. I encouraged offices to place "Blizzard" orders ahead of time. Then, we'd have the "Blizzards" ready for somebody to pick up. Several of our wonderful employees even went in early this morning and made MANY "Blizzards."





Our biggest order was for a bank -- they ordered 90 "Blizzards" at one time. That's a lot to make and keep cold.

Here's a photo of one employee, Michael, boxing up a large "Blizzard" order for a local business.



For those customers who possibly didn't want to eat a "Blizzard" or for those who wanted to buy an extra "Blizzard" to support CMN but didn't want to eat two "Blizzards" in one day, we had coupons you could buy. That way, the proceeds still go to CMN from today, but the "Blizzard" could be redeemed later.



I even ended up as a delivery driver today. Nope, we're not taking on the delivery business. But, the employees in this business couldn't get away. So, I secretly offered to deliver. I definitely didn't ADVERTISE that one. Here's a photo of a box of 21 "Blizzards" in the front seat of my car. Fortunately, I like the air-conditioner to keep the car cold. That prevented them from melting.



Our local CMN representative was around throughout the day. He left some very nice pamphlets on our tables in the dining area. In these pamphlets are wonderful stories of kids who have been assisted by CMN. Unfortunately, I forgot to pick one up for myself (but I did read through it). Fortunately, Elizabeth (remember the little girl at the beginning of this blog post) did "autograph" one. Can you see her name on the front of this pamphlet? It was pretty cute :)



We were fairly busy most of the day. Here's a photo of a group of customers -- all waiting on their "Blizzards."



And, here's a cute couple enjoying their "Blizzards." (I didn't tell them I was going to put their photo on my blog. They just assumed it was all "promotional.")



And, just for fun -- here's a photo of two cute kids, enjoying their ice cream cones. Their mother had a "Blizzard" and was sharing with them. Their mother just didn't think they'd be able to eat "Blizzards."



When I left work at around 3:45 this afternoon, we had sold right around 600 "Blizzards." Unfortunately, that's a little down from what they did last year. It seemed as if the businesses weren't ordering as much. Perhaps it's because businesses are feeling a little bit more of a "crunch" this year with money. Perhaps, unfortunately, it's because they're not employing as many people this year. Wichita has had its share of layoffs this year.

However, people are still very generous -- of which I'm very grateful. Just when it seems as if people are caring less and less, we have days like today where people show they do care. It's so NEAT to see!