2nd Semester is Here! As Alaina and I started diving into our last semester of high school, we wanted to curate a creative and unique project. After about a week of brainstorming, we landed on the perfect idea: The New Palestine Sports Swap. The goal of this project is to provide a way for people in need of sports equipment to swap unwanted equipment for needed items. We will spend the next couple months collecting unwanted sports equipment in preparation for a “sports swap” day, in which community members will be able to bring in equipment they have and swap it for items we have collected. We hope this will provide a way for athletes in need of equipment to get the resources they need. Logistics To get the word out and make our sports swap successful, we will:
To conduct this Sports Swap, we will need:
In terms of the timeline for this project, we plan to collect items from donation centers weekly until April/March. We plan to have the first swap before Little League starts, at the beginning of March, and have a second swap at the end of April. After both swaps are complete, we plan to donate leftover items to the boys and girls club, Wellness Center, and YMCA. Getting Started! Alaina and I hopped right into making flyers as soon as we decided on the Sports Swap, because we knew in order for it to be successful, we need to get the word out in every way possible. On the flyers, we included a brief description of what we are collecting and provided examples of items around the border. We printed several of these to post around NPHS, NPE, BWE, SCE, NPI, and NPJH. We sent out an email to each school's principal, explaining the project and asking if we could set up a sports equipment collection bin in the front office of their school, in which we will come collect every other week. We also included the flyer and asked for it to be included in their newsletter. They were all extremely helpful and agreed! We were so excited to be getting so much planning done very quickly, but that also meant we had a lot of work to do. Time to Get to Work!
Initially, with our busy schedules and us both being in winter sports right now, Alaina and I were struggling to find a time that would work for us to go to every school. We found that leaving every other Wednesday during homeroom would work perfect for us to travel to each school to drop off boxes and then collect items every other week. Our next task was to find collection boxes. After contacting my dad, we were so thankful that he was willing to donate 10 very sturdy boxes he uses at work to our project. We then designed a sign to put on the front of the boxes and printed 10 of them on larger posters, thanks to Mr. Large :) The following Wednesday, I loaded up all of the boxes and posters into my car, and we headed to each of the schools, assembling the boxes in the parking lots. While at each school, we posted about 5 flyers around the hallways to catch students' attention. We felt an extreme sense of relief after getting all of the boxes dropped off, and we are so excited for the first item pickup!
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! |