JC Penney Teams

[Greg Shaw]

Last year a number of teams participated as rookies through JC Penney grants. I am wondering how many of these teams have found long-term sponsors? If you were a JC Penney rookie grant recipient please respond. Also, if you know about any JC Penney teams let me know. We (Team 3601) are still struggling to find a long-term sponsor.

[MrBasse]

Team 3572 out of Norton Shores, MI was sponsored by JCPenney. The economy in Michigan has been rough and especially in the Muskegon area. We haven't found a guaranteed long term sponsor, but we have found a number of smaller donations that have us up and running and almost ready to approach the upcoming season. We have taken on the mentality that it doesn't matter how you raise $15,000, we would be happy with one large donation but we are also completely satisfied with 50 donations between $200 and $500. The majority of our sponsors that we anticipated thousands of dollars from have come in at the hundreds of dollars level.

Just keep working at it, the donations are out there you just have to find the company out there that gets what FIRST is all about and then you'll be golden.

[SenorZ]

We're also without a major sponsor. We put in for a 2nd year JCP grant, but will have to wait to see if that comes through. Some of my students have been gathering info on local companies that might do small sponsorships. I just haven't had time to go through them.
...there's still plenty of time until registration is due, right???

[rachelholladay]

We are a veteran team (founded 2006) but last year we got a 1000 JCP grant from our local store. We were offered the same amount this year. However, since money is not that big of an issue for us, we decided to opt out of the money so that $6500 could go a rookie team we are helping to start. We are continuing to partner with JCP for demo and events and such but hope that they will become a long standing sponsor of our new friends from Slidell High.

[twiggzee]

We are a second year team. We got the $6500 grant from JCP last year and we just got approved for a $2000 grant this year. I don't think they're guaranteed as a long-term partner. We have to ask to renew every year but so far the managers at the store seem to like us so hopefully we'll keep them around.