Whether manning lemonade stands or selling Girl Scout Cookies, young people are no strangers when it comes to soliciting supporters for a good cause. Enter Amanda Kossoff of Potomac. During Covid in 2020 Amanda came up with the idea of selling homemade, air-popped popcorn and donating the profits to charities. Shunning the less healthy microwaved version of popcorn, Amanda began experimenting with different flavors. With her mother’s help she started cooking in her family’s kitchen, quickly gaining loyal fans and watching her project grow in popularity.
Friends and fellow students were eager to volunteer, coming to pop the popcorn and sometimes selling it at sidewalk sales. In 2021 Pop For a Cause was formed and earned a 50(c)(3) status. As a non-profit staffed by student volunteers, young workers are able to choose their causes, donating to a wide variety of charities. In the beginning Amanda led the way by donating to So What Else, the largest food pantry in Montgomery County. A student board was created that eventually included ten high school clubs. High school students who volunteer are able to earn their Student Service Learning - SSL - hours.
Eventually Amanda realized her venture needed more kitchen space, so she moved her popping utensils to the commercial kitchen at Main Street Apartments in Rockville, and the group has been there ever since.
In 2023, Amanda graduated from Winston Churchill High School and headed off to college at the University of Pennsylvania. Her mother Liz, who has a background in finance, was involved in the project from the beginning and soon found herself working full-time organizing volunteers and taking orders. A year later, to assist with production, she started Custom Pop Shop. With the same mission as Pop For a Cause, it donates a percentage of every sale to charity.
At Custom Pop Shop, which is all online, shoppers can choose from nine different flavors which rotate by the month. Their savory offerings include tuxedo flavor – caramel with white and dark chocolate – cookies and cream, and the always popular kettle corn. Custom Pop Shop offers different themes where popcorn lovers can choose popcorn to add interest to special events such as super bowl parties, birthdays, college acceptances, religious celebrations and holiday observances such as Valentine’s Day. Special orders include favor tins with cups so people can scoop out their popcorn into a paper container. A portion of proceeds will go to the customer’s special cause.
Since its inception, Pop for a Cause and Custom Pop Shop have donated approximately $30,000 to different causes including So What Else, Alzheimer's Association, KEEN, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Level the Playing Field, and Scope. Recently they funded a Promethean board, an interactive whiteboard used in classrooms and businesses to project images and facilitate learning, to an underserved school in India, one of many impactful contributions.
Interested donors in other states have contacted Liz to start their own Pop for a Cause chapters and plans are underway to help them accomplish this. Because under the law food can be donated when made in a home, people can cook popcorn in their own house and donate it to underserved schools or communities in their own state. Liz plans to use Birthday Cakes 4 Free, a nonprofit which donates home-made free birthday cakes, as a model.
To learn more, www.custompopshop.com and www.popforacause.org or email info@custompopshop.com. Whether you’re planning a small gathering or a large celebration, they’d love to help make your event pop!