About Founders Dean Ferrara
and Andrew Allen

Dean Ferrara

An Entrepreneur by nature, Dean is the Founder of ePerformance Learning a web based on line learning company for Mechanical Contractors. He is also the inventor and Patent holder of the X Cap™ hat and its extractable eyewear technology which he licenses and promotes through his business Freetime 101.

At fifteen, Dean started his fundraising career as a volunteer for fundraisers organized by his mother "because he had to". A few years later, he learned the importance of helping those in need while helping terminal children at a summer camp. Since then, Dean has spent a significant amount of his time annually developing, organizing and running special events throughout his community as a volunteer. Now in his 40’s, Dean has been responsible for raising over 2.5 million dollars for those organizations.

It was Dean’s experience in his early years that taught him the key to running a successful event. Make it fun, unique and profitable and you will never have a problem getting people involved. It is this formula that he and his Friend Bill Allen used when they developed the first Santa Night event in 1998. After running the event for a few years in Burlington, Dean realized the potential for re-creating the success in other cities so he acquired the help of his friend and business associate Andrew Allen, (no relation to Bill) to develop a packaged event that other organizations could license and run in their own community. To do this, they started a separate business called Funraising 101 who now owns the Santa Night fundraising event and licenses it to other communities throughout the US.!

back to top

Andrew Allen

After an All-American football career at Williams College and a B.A. in Economics, Andrew took the reins of County Data Corporation, his family's database marketing firm. He ran the company for five years, sold it to InfoUSA in 1996, and led the transition company for another two years.

Andrew then treated himself to a year off to rest and think about his future. Strolling leisurely down Church Street in Burlington, he was approached by an acquaintance and asked to serve on the Board of Directors for the local Boys and Girls Club, of which he is today the President. Although Andrew returned to work in 1999 when he founded Vermont Design Works, a web design and marketing company, he has continued to give back to the community in which he lives and does business as a philanthropist, board member, angel investor, and volunteer.

In recognition of his service to the community, Andrew received the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce 2002 Rising Star award.

back to top

About Santa Night and FunRaising101

Santa Night began as a local fundraiser in 1998, the brainchild of Dean and his friend Bill Allen (no relation to Andrew). In 1999, Andrew participated in the second annual Santa Night, and the following year became co-chair of the event with Dean. The two enjoyed working together so much that they founded FunRaising101, a company dedicated to creating fun and profitable events to raise money for the less fortunate. For the past four years, Andrew and Dean have been working to expand Santa Night, the company's flagship event, with the goal of having it eventually become the largest one-day holiday fundraiser in the world.

back to top