July 5th-16th _ Grace Herman

July 16th, 2019

On the 5th of July, I walked around Tamarindo with my mentor Ashley putting up flyers for our upcoming fundraiser on July 19th. We want to get the word out, we want the whole community to know about it and hopefully show up. We went to about 15 businesses throughout Tamarindo telling them what Terraza is and what is going to happen on the 19th. Side note: I need to work on my “pitch”. It’s crazy how little people know about Terraza only La Paz knows about Terraza and that is not enough. Businesses owners were so confused and had no idea what we were talking about which is a big problem. If we want to involve the community they have to know about Terraza and at least know where we are, nevertheless, we hope this fundraiser will get the word out there. After handing out flyers I went to a meeting with Ashely with one of her mentors, Suzye Lawson. Suzye runs amigos de Educación and has a ton of experience raising money and putting on fundraisers, she knows what she’s talking about and she’s not messing around and we need this because everything is all over the place.

Next, on July 12th, we had a team meeting and a movie night. We had the meeting two hours before the movie night so I figure we were going to talk about things, get things done, put things on the calendar, etc. Nope. We talked about how we are bringing baked goods to the fundraiser and how we would each give a little speech and then went to get ice cream. That was it. We don’t have roles for the fundraiser, we don’t know what all is happening or what we can do. It’s all a little stressful. I need a little more. Generally, I am the organizer or leader on things like these or I at least have a job, but I have zero control. I feel like we all have zero control and it a little frustrating. If I was doing another more student-led CAS project it wouldn’t be like this. We are not in charge, Ashley is and I think she is so stressed out that it stresses her out to give us jobs and she’s worried we won’t complete them which is reasonable. For the movie night, she asked Anastasia to make a flyer and she didn’t make it till Thursday night. So about the movie night. Not very many people showed up. About ten people including the leadership team. That’s not great. Ashley told me that it’s great that people showed up at all, but I struggle to see it that way. But in hindsight, it is obvious that it’s us and the teen’s fault. We didn’t have a flyer till Thursday we didn’t announce it in Tenorio’s morning meeting and we didn’t decide a movie till like three days before. Not the best planning on our part. But 10 is better than none.

Yesterday the 15th, I helped Ashley painting the logo onto the wall getting the space ready for our big fundraiser and it looks great! So that’s exciting.

On Friday we have a big fundraiser. Chad Gaston is coming to talk about his experience climbing Mount Everest lots of people seem excited about it and from what adults have told me, people are talking about it, which is huge. One thing I’m worried about is Spanish speakers. The youth center seems very focused on English speakers right now all the ads are in English and at this event, everything is in English. Someone asked if there was going to be a translator and there isn’t but there should be. I mentioned it to Ashley, asking if we should and she said: “I don’t know”. If we want the whole community to be there and feel involved we need one. 

*Challenges were undertaken showing that new skills are learned, Plan and initiate an activity, Worked collaboratively with others