20 Time Reflection

Katrina and I chose this topic because it was something that we have experienced and seen first hand. Doing cheer, we both know that just a custom uniform can cost about $1000 and there are other expenses to be paid. As a dancer, Katrina has also had to spend copious amounts of money on dance costumes that she has only worn a couple of times. Our goal was to promote awareness for the cause, collect costumes to donate, help others by these donations, and to work on our planning and organizational skills.

Initially, we did not have a clear vision of where we wanted to go with our idea. After multiple trial and error attempts with ideas such as Instagram, we decided that a fundraiser would be the best idea. At our fundraiser, we would teach a dance class in exchange for costumes donated by the girls that signed up.

At first, scheduling and planning the event was difficult due to our busy and conflicting schedules. We had an original date set, but at the last minute, we realized that it was Easter and so we had to reschedule for a later date. In the end, we were able to find a date that worked for both of us and the day was a success. We had a large turnout of about 25 girls ages 6-13. Each girl brought about two costumes and in the end, we had 50 costumes to donate. After the fundraiser, we began to search for a place to donate these costumes. Not wanting to do an organization such as Good Will due to the fact that they profit from the donations, we began to search for an organization that would donate the costumes right to the source. After a day or so of looking, we discovered Traveling Tutus, an organization out of Florida that donates the costumes that they receive to those who cannot comfortably afford the rising price of dance.

Through this entire process, we learned a lot about scheduling and planning an event. Additionally, we also learned about how to properly advertise and get people to show up for an event. We utilized both flyers and electronics. The flyers helped to get the word out and then people were able to sign up online. Additionally, Katrina and I were able to send an email to the parents and students of the dance classes that Katrina teaches letting the know about our event. We also learned that it is not easy to deal with 25 young girls and so it was essential to plan every minute of our event and fill it with lots of fun games and dancing in order to avoid chaos and to make it fun. This is definitely something I would like to do again. If I had to do it again, I would want to hold more fundraisers and maybe some in different areas in order to try and get the word out even further.

Next, although I will not formally be continuing this challenge, I will always be aware of this issue and will encourage those to donate their old dance costumes or cheer uniforms. In general, I will continue to donate my other clothes and shoes that I no longer wear so that others can benefit from them. It is something so simple to do, and it can make a big difference for those in need.

If I had to give myself a letter grade, it would be an A. I felt like we were always on task while in class, and were able to keep busy. If there was a class period where we could not work on something, we would make a list to plan what we were going to do when we got home or what we needed to do to prepare for the next class. We made sure to follow through with our event, and despite the fallbacks, we held a successful event. I also believe that throughout the entire 20 process we were extremely organized and made sure to have all of our blog posts done.

In our fourth blog post, we included photos and videos from our event. That post can be seen here!

TedTalk Outline

1. our idea and the importance of giving back to this cause
2. what we did
3. planning process
4. our event
5. our take away and what we learned
6. the importance of donations