We finished our water project well, because we had a successful class presentation (we went first) and started donating.
We made a total of $257, and handed out over 250 flyers.
Freya and I decided to split the money to donate so both of us have a chance to donate on the website.
The website says $95.15 because it is in USD (Charity: Water is a US based organization), which is half of our amount.
Finally, I shared the video we made with my family, and it passed our goal of 60 views.
All in all, we enjoyed doing the water project, and it deepened our understanding of a lot of things. The one thing we would do if we had a similar project is plan the expenditures and the profit.
We wrapped up our entire Water Project pretty well.
The 5th grade presentation went smoothly, and we ended up earning over $50 in just that day. We had some left over cookies, so we sold them among 6th graders at lunch. this contributed to the $50 at the end of that day.
Above: Freya and I presenting to Ms. Smith's class.
The poster is for April 8th (the Water Project Celebration day), and the slide show and presentation is for class tomorrow. So we are doing pretty well on time because we just need to finish the poster by next Wednesday.
There are four things I really need to focus on for this week. First, making the poster. Freya and I are planning to have a description of each week on the poster with a conclusion about if our project was successful or not. We will type it up, and get the pictures we have and print them out. The poster is due on Thursday, so I definitely need to get started on that now.
Second, presenting to a 5th grade classroom. I just organized a presentation in a 5th grade class for Tuesday. I will make a short presentation, and hand out some flyers. Freya is bringing in cookies to sell and the wristbands. We are planning to sell the wristbands for $3 because we have a lot left and we need to sell them so we don't have a lot left. I realized that it is better to sell them even if we don't make profit, rather than have a bunch left over.
The third thing is preparing my presentation for science class. I need to decide if I am going to use a slide show or anything else. I need to have this ready by Thursday.
The fourth thing is sending the donations in to Charity: Water. We don't have a deadline for this, but we would want to do this as soon as possible. We are planning to give the money to our parents, and they donate by credit card, because it is easiest to donate that way.
I also think that the video I made is a great way of spreading awareness, and it is easy for most people because it is a short video accessible on YouTube. The video currently has 38 views. It is my goal to get it to 60 views by the Water Project Celebration on April 8th.
This week I achieved quite a lot for my Water Project.
On Wednesday night, my mom brought home 160 copies of the flyers to put in people's mail boxes. It took us a while to cut and fold all of the flyers. But here is a picture of all the flyers we made on Wednesday.
It doesn't look like much, but that is 160 flyers. After that, I put them into people's mail boxes. But, there were a few mailboxes left, so on Thursday night, my mom brought some more flyers home. Here is a picture of me handing out the brochures.
By Thursday night, every mail box in my condo had a flyer in it.
I would've liked to pass them out earlier because most people only check their mail boxes once or twice a week, so a lot of people might not have seen the flyers in time for my event. But, the flyers do have information for donations, so some people might email one of us for donations. We had some extra flyers with us, so we were handing them out to anyone near the function room or anyone who came.
This week we held our even in my condo's function room. For the most part, it was successful. The brownies that Freya made sold out in the first few hours, but we were still left with some cookies. The wristbands also sold better than I thought they would. We ended up handing out a whole lot of flyers, which I was really proud of, because the flyers really inform people. They are also something that people can keep, and they spread awareness. I imagined that a lot of people would collect in the function room to watch my presentation and Freya's demonstration for the kids, but it was mostly people coming and going. What we started to do is walk up to people, show them the flyer, and ask them if they want to buy cookies, brownies, or wristbands. This attracted quite a few people. We had some customers that bought in bulk. For example, one man had a dinner party, so he bought eight brownies and three cookies.
Above and to the right is a picture of how we set up our sale. I had prepared a short presentation on the Water Crisis, but I never really gave it. There were a few groups of people who were interested, so I walked them through the flyer, and explained everything in detail, because I had a lot of knowledge about that.
The picture above is slightly blurry, but it is of Freya and I with our first customers. We drew them in by telling them we were selling baked goods for charity.
We didn't want the water filter demonstration to go to waste, since no one was doing it. I realized that no one was doing it because we didn't tell them about it. So there was one lady who's kids really liked our baked goods and kept coming back for them. So we asked her if her kids would like to see a short demonstration, and she was really happy about that.
Another thing we did to draw people in is I made a poster, and put up printouts of the flyers on the window of the function room. Here are pictures of that.
Finally, I finished my movie for our project and uploaded it to YouTube. Here it is.
At the end, we made around $200 in total. I learned that you really need to think about how you are going to draw people in. I could've delivered the flyers earlier; asked my mom to inform people she knows in our condo; and maybe even walked around the condo talking to people about it. I expected people to collect in the function room, rather than having groups of people come and go. I didn't think about what other people would come for.
Also, even though we earned $200, we spent a lot of money. We spend $3.30 on each wrist band, and we started by selling at $5, but not many people were buying them, so we dropped the price to $4. The function room costs $40 to book. At first, I was thinking that I would have to earn enough money to pay my mom back for the function room money, but she said that she was like a sponsor for our cause, so we didn't need to pay her back. We are not sure if we are going to pay Freya's parents back for the wristbands.
One thing I would want to change about this week is to divide the work up better. I felt that I was doing most of the work, and my partner wasn't doing as much. What I could've done about this is assigned my partner some of the work I was doing. I felt this because at certain points, I was getting really stressed about it, and my partner didn't have that much to be stressed about at all.
At first I thought bake sales were really generic and not very professional, so I didn't really want to do them. But then I realized that most people really like bake sales, so they are a good idea if you are trying to draw people in.
I will definitely remember interacting with the customers this week. One memorable one was a man who bought things with his family at first. His four year old son came back about 10 minutes later and handed be a handful of change. His dad said it was all of his savings.
To end our Water Project, we were thinking of going to present to a fifth grade class. We could present and sell baked goods there, so we earn more money. If we do make this decision, I think we should act on it quickly because in the past weeks we have been slow at doing things.
This week we accomplished a few things, but more than that, we got a better sense of what we are doing. In other words, we formed a better plan. The biggest thing I did this week was complete our flyers. The flyers are extremely important because they advertise our cause, which will get people to support it. Below are pictures of the flyer.
Since we are planning an event in my condo, we plan to put a flyer in every resident's mail box. Because the flyers also have information in general, we want to hand them out to as many people as we can.
In terms of planning, as I said, we achieved a lot. This week, we are going to ask the American Club for permission to set up a station in the hallway where we can hand out flyers and have a donation box. We are also planning an activity for kids at the event in my condo. Freya is planning to teach them how to make water filters. We also want to try to make a poster with information for my condo to draw people in to the event. Finally, we are planning to sell baked goods at my condo.
The wristbands might not end up working out because the sellers are not replying. This is ok, because we are finding other things to sell now.
One thing I didn't do this week that I really want to do next week is get down to doing things. This week I sort of took it easily, and went with the flow, but on the weekend I really realized that I needed to get things done. This is especially important since we have a lot to do this coming week.
On Tuesday, we decided not to go on with the website. We made this decision because the website takes a long time, and it wasn't really needed. We decided to ask if we can host an event to make people aware at the American Club. We will ask for permission some time this week or next week. We also wanted to host an event in my condo, that will be centered around making people aware. If they really are interested, they may donate.
What we will be working on this week and this weekend are:
-finishing up our video
-getting permission to present in certain places
-planning presentations
-making posters
-making pamphlets
Another thing we are doing tomorrow is sending in our wrist band orders. We can get them made in less than 5 days, so we are sending in our designs. The wrist bands will be blue, and will have a slogan surrounded by a water droplet on each side. We will sell the wristbands at our events and on the school selling day.
In Science we have been assigned the Water Project. All we have to do is make some sort of difference for water related issues. So, there are really a lot of ways we can go with it. We get a month to work on the project, and have to do something, and make a presentation for it. For the project, I am working with Freya (her blog: http://sb-sas44584.blogspot.sg/) Part of the assignment is also to make at least one blog post a week explaining what we accomplished that week and any possible road blocks we hit during that week too. So here is Week 1:
This week we figured out that making people aware was our number one priority, and donating is our second priority. We agreed upon that because we thought that simply getting people's money is like "giving them a fish", but making them aware is like "teaching them how to fish". For example, if you have a huge event that attracts a lot of people, but they might not know what the event is for. If you talk to people about the issues, then a seed is planted in their mind, and later that person can take their own action. We do want to have a fund-raising event, but we are not sure what exactly we should do for the event.
What I mainly did this week is research. I wasn't planning to make a video, but I ended up starting to make a video. Freya already knew a water crisis organization called Water Aid. We contacted them this week with some questions. With my research I found an organization called Charity: Water, and I really like them because of the ideas they support and their model. So, if we do raise money, we would want to donate to one or both of those organizations.
To the left is a screenshot of our Water Project Notes document. This is just a way to stay organized. It has all of our research, ideas, and reminders. For example, we listed organizations we might donate to with their websites. We also have some ideas for events we might have.
The picture to the right is a screenshot of the Instagram account Freya and I made to advertise our cause. This is really important because if we do have an event, we need to advertise to get people to show up. We know that a lot of students in our school have an Instagram account, so this would promote our project in the school. You might notice the profile picture in this screenshot. Right now, it just says 'The Water Project' with a drop of water. We were trying to make a logo to brand our cause. We realized that only after we do more research to specify our cause, can we make a really nice logo. So, we decided to use this logo for now. We made this logo entirely by ourselves using Google Drawings, but we have no copy righted images. The video post is a short clip from our upcoming video.
Another thing we did was start making our website. In math, I recently made a website for a project using Wix HTML Editor. The website making site works really well, and it's easy to edit their templates. Again, we need to do more research and specify our cause to continue with the website.
Below is the video clip I mentioned before.
One thing I didn't do this week that I want to to next week is get things done. At the beginning of this week, I though I would I have a lot of time later on. But I realized that I have gotten slightly behind. I want to manage my time better this week by working step by step and working a little every night. I realized that there is actually quite a bit of work to do. Our last week is Spring Break, and I don't want to have a whole lot to do then.
