The Finale!! The week we returned from spring break was go time. We did a final collection of equipment Wednesday, April 13th, which we unfortunately weren't able to get pictures of because it was pouring rain so we had to be quick🌧🙁 We collected several items and transported our final collection to the rather large collection pile in Alaina's garage. On Friday, I loaded the items I had into my car to be ready for the set-up bright and early the next morning. We decided to meet at 8 AM the next morning to have a comfortable time of 2 hours to set up before the swap started at 10 AM. Our parents both came to kindly lend a helping hand. We hauled four tables and some chairs out from the high school to the parking lot of the naditorium, and the sports swap came to life! The tables were filled with shoes, clothes, helmets, gloves, bags, and more. Buckets of sports balls and lines of bats lines the tables for visitors to dig through. We took some pictures to promote the swap on Facebook and twitter, and awaited the start time of 10AM. Final Setup! The Sports Swap was a huge success! We had people show up right at 10AM, looking for items for their upcoming sports seasons. Many people came back to drop off unwanted items they had, which other community members could then take. We got a little worried about halfway through, as it looked like we had more items than we started with since so many people wanted to get rid of unwanted items. Throughout the swap, we collected donations to donate to the Eyerman family for Andrew Eyerman, who is currently fighting leukemia. Around 11AM, we had an incredible surprise. A man stopped by the swap and explained to us that he was planning to start up a sports equipment resell business, and he wanted to know if we were interested in allowing him to buy all the leftover equipment we had when the swap was over. We were originally planning on donating leftover equipment to Goodwill, but we thought this was a much better option, and we could donate the profit to the Eyerman family. He gave us his phone number to call when the swap was over, and we were so excited! People continued to flow in until we cut the swap off around 1. Then the man came and loaded everything left over into his vehicle for $250! It was such an incredible experience to get to see community members happy to find what they needed and talk with them about how sorts equipment is so hard to find. We received an outpouring amount of support, and we are so so thankful that so many people enjoyed it! Facebook Comments! A huge thank you goes out to everyone who supported the swap and to Mr. Large for providing us with the opportunity to execute this project! Thank you for following along the Sports Swap journey!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHello, my name is Kennedy Garrett, and I am a senior at New Palestine High School. I can't wait to take you along the journey of the New Palestine Sports Swap! |