The British International School of Washington takes an annual mission trip to Tanzania with the year 12 students. In partnership with 'The Seeway Project', students spend 10 days assisting the local schools with resources and other essentials (e.g. desks and chairs) as well as assisting in the local communities building goat sheds and furnaces helping families in need.
In order to participate in the service activities, each student is required to raise $350 to pay for necessary materials needed when doing construction work. It takes creative and successful events to raise the required $350. Recently, multiple year 12 students have run extremely fascinating events in order to raise that money.
I decided to ask 4 different students about their fundraising activities.
Sophie Gill and Britt Oranje decided to organize a school disco running for 2 nights: the first on the 13th of November 2019 for reception to year 3 students and the second on the 14th of November 2019 for year 4-6 students.
I met with one of the coordinators, Sophie Gill, to ask her about the events.
“After meeting with several of the teachers, Britt and I decided to run a [primary/elementary school] disco because we remember how much we loved school dances when we were younger”
When asked on the success of the event she said
“I think [the disco] was pretty successful because we raised over $1000 and got to see all of the kids have a great time and dancing, which was the main purpose anyway. [Britt and I] were really happy with the outcome, because each student was suggested to donate $5 towards the Tanzania expedition, and even though it was only a lightly encouraged, seeing support from other students meant a lot to us”
I later asked Sophie what the main ‘lesson’ was she gained from the whole experience.
“I really liked interacting with all of the students in younger years and I gained an understanding as to how the organization of these events go and how much work goes into them!”
I then spoke to Elisa Vleesenbeek on her fundraising technique. Over the summer Elisa began thinking about how to raise the money and turned to the help of social media.
“I started posting pictures on Facebook and writing about the work we would be doing (building the schools and the furnaces and everything). Later, I wrote that I needed money to complete the project and set up a ‘Go Fund Me’; saying in exchange [for the money] that I would create a Facebook page posting daily updates with what we do, showing them the process and giving them an idea of the effects of the project.”
I also asked her about the actual success of this and how fast it all happened.
“I think it was so successful, I was able to get all the money I needed in four days! I have the money and even a little bit more to add to the overall funds. All that’s left now is to go to Tanzania and I can post all the blog posts and videos”
the next person I asked about fundraising was my partner Olga Ofitsarova- whom I was fundraising with.
Together we hosted “Halloween movie nights” running for two nights: the first on 28th of October 2019 for students in year 7- year 9 where they showed the move “The Quiet Place” and the second on the 29th of October 2019 for students in Year 10- year 13 where they showed the move “Insidious”.
Our thought process was quite simple. Olga quotes "After asking ourselves what event we would’ve liked to have seen when we were younger, we came to the conclusion that watching horror movies with our friends was definitely in the top 5, both of us have a love for horror movies and thought why don’t share that?”
Although we were not able to make the full $350 due to a few minor setbacks, the event overall was well received. All the people who attended had a good time and it was genuinely so fun to look at the suspense on everyone’s face and them being able to enjoy a good scare with friends.
After learning about the setbacks, the event had faced, I asked Olga what she learnt from the whole process.
“In all honesty the biggest take away here is to think through every single option and to look through every detail and leave nothing up to chance. I really learned a lot about organization that goes into big events and learned a lot about myself in the process and how I handle all the thought that goes into it.”
The final person I interviewed was Alex Hoyt and Diego Zavarce who ran a “walk-a-thon” in order to raise the money through sponsors.
“We set up a ‘Go Fund Me’ so people could donate to us (and to incentivize it) we set up a “walk-a-thon” at Duke Ellington where we would do 50 laps and people could either give flat donations or money per lap.”
In comparison Alex Hoyt’s group was much larger than others as there were many moving parts.
”There were five of us and we raised $1825 between us, I think it was a really fun experience: setting up the accounts, raising awareness, making posters and walking with friends. I was lucky enough to work with 5 friends of mine and also found success”
Diego Zavarce (one of the co-organizers) recommends this technique to rising year 12’s in their fundraising endeavors.
“People should consider doing one big thing to raise funds for Tanzania instead of a bunch of little things it’s way easier I think”
- Minna Abdel-Gawad
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