Charity Fair Project Blog (12/5-12/9)

This is our trifold poster

Summary:

 This week in school, we have been working on the charity fair. The charity that my group chose is Aim High. Aim High is a non-profit organization that helps middle school students that are either behind in learning or come from low-profit neighborhoods. They help by offering them a free chance to catch up during the summer to be prepared for high school and then later on for college. About 97% of Aim High students are youth of color, 80% live in low-income homes, and 75% speak a language other than English at home. 70% of their teachers are people of color, 60% are multilingual (speak several different languages), and 30% are graduates of Aim High, and come back to help other kids because they have the same experience. Aim high is very cost-effective, and pays the teacher $2,000 per-student for teaching during the whole summer. Aim High does not teach like an ordinary school, and not just a fun summer camp. They combine important and needed academics with fun, enriching, community-building activities, kind of like how we do at AdVENTURE.

Backwards- Looking

What process did you go through to produce this piece?

To make our dream catchers, these are the steps:

Materials Needed:

• Yarn
• 4 Beads
• Metal ring
• Scissors

Step 1:	Step 1: Tie a knot, and wrap the yarn all the way around the metal ring. Make sure that this is tight
Step 2:	Step 2: Tie another knot with a different colored string on top of the first colored yarn. Then, place the yarn about 2 inches away from the knot, and loop it around. Keep doing this until you have it evened out.
Step: 3	Step 3: Keep doing step 2, except loop the string in the middle of the spacing on top.
Step: 4	Step 4: Keep doing step 3 until you reach the middle of your metal ring.
Step 5:	Step 5: Once you reach the middle of the metal ring, place one bead through the string, and keep weaving to secure the bead. Once you are done, knot the end of the yarn to one of the loops you did before.
Step 6:	Step 6: Once you are done with the inside of the metal ring, you are able to decorate your dream catcher. You can decorate it with feathers, beads, or anything that you want to put on your dream catcher.
Step 7:	Step 7: Add a piece of string to the top of your dream catcher, and tie a knot. This is so you can hang your dreamcatcher. (This step is optional if you don’t want to hang your dreamcatcher.
Finished Product:	Finished Product: Once you are done, then you have completed your dream catcher. Put it on your wall and relax, not to worry about having bad dreams.

Inward - Looking:

How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work?

I feel good about our part in the charity fair. I liked how we got to present first, and then start selling because then it is more organized. I did not like that the presentations took longer than they were supposed to because then we had less time to sell our items. I think we did a good job making our dreamcatchers because we sold out, and made 50 dollars. I really enjoyed making the products and organizing all of the information onto the poster board.

Outward - Looking:

Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? In what ways did you do it differently? In what ways was your work or process similar?

Everyone chose different products though sometimes they were repeated. I did not see anyone else making dreamcatchers at the charity fair, but I did see people doing similar things that also needed weaving. All of the presentations were different because each team had a different charity and information. I did not see any other groups doing Aim High, but I did see other charities that also affected middle school students.

Forward - Looking:

What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?

If I had a chance to do this piece over again, then I would make all of the dreamcatchers have feathers to make them look more professional. I would also make the poster more attracting so more people will come and look at it. I would have also made time to make a better stand to show our dreamcatchers. The stand we had was being held by our change box, which would fall every time we needed to return money to somebody.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the 2016 charity fair was well organized and a good experience for everybody. I think that we made a lot of money and the charity we chose will be proud of our school and teachers for organizing such a good event to help others. I hope we will have the charity fair as an annual event and tradition for our school from now on.