Accountants embrace levity to boost food bank project - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

For several years now the local office of BKD, an accounting firm with offices all over the country, has made raising money for Community Harvest Food Bank one of its primary charitable causes.

It encourages staff members to contribute and asks them to approach friends, family members and even some clients for donations.

The big fundraising push comes just before Thanksgiving. As a lure, certain staff members agreed to do what you might call silly things if they met their fundraising goal.

One year they agreed to grow beards, not too daring, except for one accountant who couldn�t grow one. In later years, they agreed to wear 3�-inch red high heels to the company party, take the polar bear plunge in the St. Joseph River on New Year�s Day and yet another year to take part in a four-mile run on Thanksgiving Day, even though none of them was a runner.

The efforts have paid off pretty well. In the last eight years, BKD has raised $24,200, which it has contributed to the food bank�s annual Turkey Rally.

Food bank officials say that in the last four years its Turkey Rally has raised $27,409, plus around 1,000 turkeys and around 3,000 pounds of other food.

So BKD�s efforts alone have raised a substantial portion of the Thanksgiving food drive. Last year, for example, the firm raised $8,200.

The problem with an annual project like this, though, is that the firm has to come up with a new silly stunt every year.

This year, the firm has set a goal of raising $6,000, and for each $1,500 raised one accountant will dress up as a living Christmas tree and put himself on display during BKD�s client night at the Festival of Trees at the Embassy Theatre. If the push raises $9,000, the local office�s overall boss will even dress as a tree.

If you want to look silly, I can�t think of a better way to do it than to show up at a Christmas tree exhibition dressed as a Christmas tree.

One wonders, though, isn�t there a certain amount of risk in this? These guys are accountants. Maybe some of them are closet joggers, but don�t they wear gray suits and pore humorlessly over columns of numbers most of the time? Isn�t showing up dressed as a Christmas tree a little out of character?

Well, yes, said Jeremy Carnahan, a CPA and manager with BKD, but they�ve got a pretty personal relationship with their clients, and most of them know about the firm�s involvement in the food bank program, so they�ll understand.

Plus, the stunt will take place at a party of sorts, not during a consultation on tax law.

Carnahan, who had no idea what an important part his firm�s fundraiser played in the food bank�s Thanksgiving food drive, would actually like to expand the overall effort.

�My ultimate goal is to institutionalize this,� Carnahan said. �My long-range vision is to get other businesses involved. I�d like it to be a food bank event, not just a BKD fundraiser. It could become one of the marquee fundraisers in Fort Wayne.�

Carnahan and other staffers will be accepting donations from the people they approach.

For the general public, the food bank�s Turkey Rally will take place Nov. 3, when people will be encouraged to bring holiday food items and frozen turkeys or hams or cash donations to the food bank at 999 E. Tillman Road. Donations will be accepted from 5 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. that day.

Frank Gray reflects on his and others� experiences in columns published Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. He can be reached by phone at 461-8376, by fax at 461-8893, or by email at fgray@jg.net. You can also follow him at twitter.com (@FrankGrayJG).

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