All right…admit it. Who hasn’t wanted to go all Office Space on a misbehaving copier once or twice in their professional career? We’ve heard the desperation in peoples’ voices as they call our office begging for help with one of those rogue printers that showed up on someone’s desk and randomly decides to spew madness. So we thought we’d have a little fun with the idea and kick it up a notch in our Kansas City office while doing a bit of good for our local community with our 2nd Annual Worst Copier in KC event. Our aim was twofold: raise some serious cash for BIGGSteps for Cancer Prevention & replace KC's worst copier with a new Canon MFP valued at $10,000 plus 2 full years of copies and service at a local business in desperate need of a new copier.
But ultimately, we took pity on St John the Baptist Church of Kansas City, Kansas who told us:
This is a historic church in downtown KCK with a 12 year old Xerox. It jams all the time, doesn’t do two sided and has no color capabilities. They expect it to jam every time they use it and they can rarely complete a job without having to open up the inside of the machine and pull out paper. Phyllis Hampton is the Parish Secretary: “We can’t officially print the name we’d like to call it because it sits in a Church”. They outsource over $1,000 annually to get prints made for the church and for the social club downstairs. The social club downstairs has a bar and a bowling alley where they need to print event calendars, invoices, rental contracts and everything else. This is also the main machine for a variety of groups including the Church Choir, Altar Society and for the Bereavement Committee. The new Canon copier will help a variety of these groups, allowing them to quit outsourcing small costly jobs, have color in house, print two sided (without flipping the page over in the bypass) and eliminate virtually all excessive jamming issues.
At the same time, we organized a silent auction with all proceeds to be donated to BIGGSteps, a local charitable organization founded in honor of Wichita native, Sean Biggs, that “raises awareness of the causes and prevention of cancer; assists those affected by cancer; and supports cancer research.”
We kicked off our event with a Technology Showcase hosted in the Board Room at Union Station in conjunction with the KC Chamber of Commerce. We served up a killer taco bar along with business technology demos and educational opportunities in wide format printing, electronic content management (ECM), as well as IT Infrastructure and Management.
Once everyone had time to enjoy a taco or two and wander to the parking lot, we gave Phyllis her wish! We counted down and let her pull the chain to smash her ugly old piece of junk to smithereens. We delivered a brand new Canon MFP to replace St John the Baptist's old copier that will continue to provide quality prints for years.
There are quite a few people we have to thank for giving their time to help with the Worst Copier in KC: Our emcee for the day, local KC Sports Radio personality Nate Bukaty, who volunteered in honor of his friend Sean Biggs: the inspiration for BIGGSTEPS. Nate was joined by KC's favorite local weatherman, Gary Lezak, who...as predicted...brought a gorgeous, sunny day & a special appearance by KU's very own Baby Jay! A HUGE thanks goes out to Canon USA for supporting the event with the donation of a brand new Canon MFP for St John the Baptist Catholic Church. Union Station Kansas City for co-hosting and allowing us to take over their parking lot for the day and the KC Chamber of Commerce for their assistance in setting up over the course of two full days of prep. We owe a major debt of gratitude to Belger Cartage for literally doing the heavy lifting and hoisting the Worst Copier 110ft in the air so Phyllis could smash it to smithereens. And Real Media for capturing truly amazing footage of the drop from start to finish.
But most of all...THANK YOU KANSAS CITY!!! Thanks to your support, we were able to raise $5,000 for BIGGSteps!!!! So without further ado...let's show you what all the fuss was about!
Stay tuned to our website and social media pages for more exciting updates about our Worst Copier in KC event for 2018! More information to come. In the meantime, be sure to check out our blog for more information about SumnerOne.
Originally published March 5, 2018, updated September 20, 2018