Aaron Burakoff ’12Journal 1
This summer, I am interning with Holiday Hill Enterprises, a children’s entertainment and educational media company founded by Joe Troiano in 2001. Joe is a children’s author and lyricist, and the creator of Spookley the Square Pumpkinand all of the characters that live on Holiday Hill Farm, where “every day is a holiday.” The Holiday Hill Farm content has been embraced by educators and nonprofit organizations because it helps convey important messages about issues including tolerance, diversity, and self-respect. It has also been embraced within the agritourism community by farm operators who incorporate its characters into their on-site education and entertainment activities. For example, dozens of farms across North America have turned Spookley the Square Pumpkin into a permanent installation during their fall harvest festivals through storytelling, live stage shows, Spookley-themed corn mazes, and pick-your-own pumpkin patches.
My specific area of focus with Holiday Hill Enterprises is to support the company’s growth within the agritourism community. Holiday Hill Enterprises aspires to more proactively collaborate with and support its farm partners. I have spent a great deal of my time thus far reaching out to farmers in our network to better understand how Holiday Hill Farm content helps them to entertain and educate their guests. I have discovered that many farm owners read The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin to elementary school students who visit the farm on school field trips. They appreciate how Spookley bridges the gap between the character development curriculum in the classroom and the educational discussion about pumpkins that takes place on the farm. I have also gathered feedback from the farmers to identify new products and services that we can offer to help them improve the on-site experience. For example, we will start offering farmers sets of giant, weatherproof signs that they can place throughout their farms so kids and families can read Holiday Hill Farm stories as they walk through the corn mazes and pumpkin patches.
In the weeks ahead, I look forward to deepening relationships with our existing farm partners and developing new relationships with additional farms across the country. Our goal is to have a network of at least 30-50 farms across North America, that feature Holiday Hill Farm content in their school field trip and entertainment programs between September and November 2011.
Journal 2
As I mentioned in my first journal entry, my primary area of focus this summer is to help build the Holiday Hill Enterprises agritourism program. Since writing my first entry, I have continued to develop new relationships with farmers across North America who will incorporate Spookley the Square Pumpkin and our other characters into their education and entertainment programs.
In addition to networking directly with farms, I have devoted a lot of my time and energy to expanding Spookley’s presence within the education community. A major component of our value proposition to farmers is that educators love Spookley, which enables our farm partners to use Spookley as a tool to attract teachers and their classrooms to their farms on field trips. If we can enhance the role our content plays in the classroom, we can improve the value of our offering to our farm partners.
In order to broaden Spookley’s appeal and increase his presence in the classroom, I have had lengthy conversations with several elementary school teachers to better understand how they find and develop their lesson plans and how they choose which stories to read to their students. I have also conducted an email survey with educators who use Spookley to understand the different activities and lesson plans that teachers use in conjunction with our books and our movies. We plan to use this feedback to expand the collection of free lesson plans and activity sheets that we will offer to educators and farm operators this fall via our website (www.spookley.com).
I have also worked with my colleagues to expand our social media presence. We recently launched a new “Spookley the Square Pumpkin” official Facebook Fan Page as a tool to keep educators, farm operators, and all Spookley fans abreast of the latest news and events throughout the fall.
Journal 3
The summer is coming to an end, which means that pumpkin season is almost here and life is about to get very busy for Spookley the Square Pumpkin and Holiday Hill Enterprises. I have spent the last few weeks of my internship preparing for a successful fall season. Also, I am excited to announce that Spookley the Square Pumpkin will be the official “spokes-pumpkin” for National Bullying Prevention Month in October.
A few weeks ago, I learned that October is National Bullying Prevention Month. Given that so many educators are already reading The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin to teach their students about diversity and anti-bullying during October, I recognized this as an opportunity for Holiday Hill Enterprises to establish an official tie-in with bullying prevention. Therefore, I reached out to the Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights (PACER), the nonprofit organization that sponsors National Bullying Prevention Month in October.
Spookley and PACER will be teaming up on a number of initiatives to raise awareness for bullying prevention throughout October. We are developing these initiatives in conjunction with a number of our key partners, including many of the farms, pumpkin patches, and corn mazes that will feature Spookley in their on-site education and entertainment programs this fall. We at Holiday Hill Enterprises are very excited about this opportunity to be able to use our content to help raise awareness for a very important cause.
Even though the summer is coming to a close, I expect to remain involved with Holiday Hill Enterprises throughout the fall and I hope to continue to work with the organization throughout the seasons and years to come. The company has developed content that appeals to children, care-givers, and educators, and it is a thrill for me to be able to help deliver this content to a growing audience at schools and farms across North America.
