My Candle Wishes Story

Hi!  My name is Linda Hinkle, and when I first stumbled upon Candle Wishes Soy Candles, becoming a fundraising consultant had never entered my mind.  I was just looking for good quality soy candles.  But I’m a little ahead of myself here, so let’s go back about four years and start there.

I recently retired from 29 years of teaching high school mathematics.  I know that makes me sound reallllly old, but I’m not; not in my mind anyway!  And when I started planning to retire from teaching, I knew that I wasn’t ready to just sit and do nothing.  I was just ready for something different, and I had grown tired of so many of the challenges of teaching that were beyond my control.  So, I spent the last two years of my teaching career searching for “something else” to do when I did decide to retire.

I knew that I wanted to do something with lots and lots of flexibility.  I wanted my time to be my own after living by a school bell for 29 years.  If I got up in the morning with one of my migraine headaches, I wanted to be able to stay home and not worry about having to be anywhere or do anything.  But I wanted to make some money, too.  And the classic advice retirees receive is “be sure to do something you love.” 

One day as I was tossing around some ideas, my step-daughter offered “Why don’t you sell soy candles?”  She knew I loved candles, but I had never heard of soy candles.  She proceeded to tell me how she had received one as a gift from someone out-of-state, how they were new and becoming very popular and how they could not be found in our area at all.

I thought about it for a while and decided to start investigating.  I researched both on and off line.  Sure enough, soy candles were nowhere to be found in our area but were readily available on the web.  Posing as an ordinary consumer (not mentioning that I was researching for wholesale possibilities), I ordered candles from numerous companies just to test quality and see which ones I liked best.  As it turned out, the candles that I liked best were from Candle Wishes Inc. And when I investigated further, I learned that the real focus of their business was as a fundraising company; they offered their premium soy candles to groups and organizations to sell for fundraisers. 

Now I really started thinking.  I knew all about fundraisers.   As most high school teachers know, their required duties include much more than “just teaching”.  Each of those clubs and organizations on campus must have a faculty sponsor, and over the years I served as such to everything from Cheerleaders to Student Council to FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes).  Fundraising was always something we had to do.  Also, during all those years of teaching I was a single parent of two wonderful sons who both played baseball, soccer, football, and basketball.  Those activities also required fundraising, so I felt quite “experienced” in recognizing a good fundraising program.  I had also seen lots of “junk” offered for fundraisers and I knew the advantages of having a quality product to sell.  Candle Wishes offered that product.

But the thing that really caught my eye was the PRE-SORTED by Participant phrase!  I had spent many hours after school sorting fundraiser items for students to deliver to their customers.  I often found myself dreading the announcement that our fundraising order had arrived, as I knew what a huge job was awaiting me. What a fantastic selling point “PRE-SORTED by Participant” would be to teachers!!

And, as they say, the rest is history.  I had found something that allowed me to set my own schedule, involved something that I was passionate about (my love of candles AND my desire to help teachers everywhere have an easier work load), I could work from home, and I could make good money.  The proverbial "icing on the cake" was when I was fortunate enough to get to visit the Candle Wishes Corporate Office in Dallas and meet the owner, Michele Williams, our National Sales Manager, Karen Jenkins, and all the home office staff, along with a tour of the facilities.  These are just the nicest, most down-to-earth people you would ever want to meet, and with a whole lot of business sense.  All in all, it’s just a really wonderful company to be associated with!

It is my hope that sharing my story with you will help you to see us as real, ordinary people who experience the same joys and struggles in life as you do.  If we can make your fundraising tasks a little easier, we'd like to help.