The Garden Party

Event: The Garden Party

Group Name:  Roots & Shoots, No.2 High School of East China Normal University

Event Date:  2014-12-30

Report Submitter: Wu Yue

Participant Number: 15

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EVENT DETAILS:

The Garden Party at the end of the year is the most anticipated event, not only will the students and faculty participate in this activity, but also the student’s friends. Jay, the YES program volunteer, taught us the necessary knowledge concerning environmental protection and charities in order to avoid embarrassment if customers ask us questions. In November, we held a discussion on “charity sales”: why do we hold sales, and what commodities we would like to sell. In the end, we selected our favorite goods and were ready to pick them up in December.

During December, we separated our Senior One students into three groups, each preparing several items. The majority of these souvenirs came from environmental protection agencies, charity organizations, and designers. In order to get these companies involved, many of our members had to contact them and decide on prices and items. Some groups wanted to design goods themselves, so they looked for manufacturers who would accept this type of order. Jay always told us it was not the actual goods, but the reason behind them that was the most important. Therefore, while speaking to various organizations and designers, we would always inquire their reason for choosing this path.With ideas ready, we wrote 4 articles on Jay’s Wechat platform.

 The products that were sold from each group were:

Group A: Animal protection series,  coasters, bookmarks, and toy figurines.

Idea: Look after stray animals and substituting adoption for sales.

Group B: “Cutting Love” paper-cutting fridge magnets, chopsticks and spoons bags.

Idea: Caring for grandparents and awareness of Alzheimer patients & Rejecting disposable chopsticks and the overuse of chemicals.

Group C: Purses and iPad covers made out of recycled pants.

Idea: Using recycled cloth not only reuses materials but also reduces energy and resources to deal with trash.

Almost all products were sold at original price and donated to related organizations and people.

To prepare, we held simulation charity sales at club meetings. Groups exchanged ideas, discussed the placement the goods, etc. Jay even played different roles of customers with different personalities for simulation. We learned a lot during practice that we  gained confidence about the upcoming party.

Unlike other clubs, we substituted Internet posts for paper posts, like the Wechat articles mentioned above. During the party, we used a tablet to play our posts.

Due to miscommunication, the school presented us a remote place to sell our items. Luckily, we used a temporary booth in a better location instead. During the event, we played movies on environmental issues in the main stall. Selling wasn’t an easy process, for some members had other stalls to attend, and there were more people that came than initially planned. But we finished with over 700 RMB collected.