A paperclip and generosity.

Professor Zoe Chance decided to play a week-long game with her MBA class. 

The game is called Bigger & Better.

You start with a paperclip and trade up for something bigger and better. 

And you continue trading up for..

Bigger and better. 

Manus McCaffery and Tom Powell were two students in Professor Zoe’s class who decided to take this game to a new level. 

Bigger and better. 

Tom and Manus spent the week speaking to business owners and neighbors: 

“We’re playing this game called Bigger and Better. It’s for a good cause and we need your help..”

They made ten trades in total. 

Paper clip for gift certificate. 

Certificate for a box of cupcakes. 

Cupcakes for brooch. 

Brooch for a travel mug. 

Mug for gift card. 

Gift card for another gift card. 

Gift card for a bottle of cologne. 

Cologne for a fancy camera bag. 

Camera bag for $1500 oil painting. 

Oil Painting for a..

It turns out that the final item was too big to bring into the classroom, so they invited the class to come outside. 

And outside in front of the school Bigger and Better was written across the windshield of a Volkswagen Jetta. 

Tom and Manus had managed to persuade a car dealer by the name of Caroline Hefferman to trade a used car for the painting. 

Caroline has a history of supporting good causes, so when the opportunity to be generous presented itself, Caroline did what she often does. 

When the class thanked Caroline, feeling really good about helping, she thanked them instead. 

With the car in their possession Tom and Manus decided to call IRIS, a local refugee resettlement agency, to donate the car to a refugee family. 

And later they met the recipient - A young mom who had been working as an accountant in Afghanistan before her family was displaced by war. And now, with her new car in hand, she could travel to work without having to commute two hours a day by bus.

Bigger and Better.