Taking it up a notch

Parent Cafe
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<p>Dear Parents,</p>

<p>I am a recently graduated, homeschooler who always struggled with a lack of identity and purpose for my life. Similar to many kids on this forum I hid my insecurities by throwing myself into academics (and intense ballet training). Constant feelings of inadequacy culminated in anorexia and depression at fourteen. </p>

<p>During the first painful month of recovery, my online school director asked students to make and send Christmas cards to deployed soldiers. Seizing the opportunity for divertissement, my mom encouraged me to create a few cards. As my strength returned, I built Happy Day Cards, an organization to craft and collect handmade greeting cards for soldiers both in combat and recuperating in hospitals such as Walter Reed in Washington D.C. In the last two years I conducted card-making sessions with local churches, scouting groups, and retirement homes. </p>

<p>Due in part to my unstable medical past my parents have decided that I will take a gap year before heading off to Brown in fall 2009. Many kids spend their time off working with the Peace Corps etc., but I’d really like to spend the year taking Happy Day Cards to the next level. I’ve contacted my little sister’s elementary school about doing a drive and was considering asking my So. California congressman to send a card. I’m sure what step to take next and who better to ask then the oh-so-wise parents of CC? Any thoughts, suggestions, or advice would be most appreciated. </p>

<p>Emily</p>

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<p>For starters, buy a domain name.</p>

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<p>I’d like to do that, but I have little knowledge of web design (hence the blogger format). What would be the benefits of having my own domain name?</p>

<p>Emily</p>

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<p>You could research how to get your program into organizations like the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts on a broader scale. They could contact you and you could come and lead card-making sessions on a broader scale. You could charge the organization for the cost of your materials. I think a Girl Scout troop would enjoy having someone come to lead an event like this and would be willing to pay $5 each or something like that.</p>

<p>The YMCA would be another possibility. They have after school day care, so perhaps you could travel around to local Y’s to host sessions. Again, they have funds for materials for the kids, so they should be able to pay.</p>

<p>Local elementary schools? Talk to an asst. principal about your project and ask if there is a way to get it into the school. If it is successful, there will be word of mouth within the district and you could move from school to school. Maybe the PTA would fund it. This would be a great thing to do with underprivileged kids. Many of them have family members who are deployed, and it would give them a feeling of doing something to support those soldiers.</p>

<p>I know you are already doing many of these things. By “taking it up a notch”, I assume you mean getting people to make the cards without your actually being present to do the card-making sessions. Is that right? If so, you could post directions on holding the sessions on your website. Give instructions for how to make the cards and a detailed supply list. Give a breakdown on costs. Perhaps you could put together kits with supplies for 10 card makers and sell those on the website.</p>

<p>Then, think about how to publicize your website. You might get the Girl Scouts to do a story about Happy Day Cards in their magazine. Ditto for other organizations. Your local news station and/or newspaper might do a human interest story on your project. Before you contact them, be sure you have that website totally operational and up to date.</p>

<p>I am looking at using this web hosting company for our home business: [InMotion</a> Hosting - World Class Business Hosting, VPS Hosting, and Dedicated Servers](<a href=“http://www.inmotionhosting.com%5DInMotion”>http://www.inmotionhosting.com) . I believe they have templates for setting up a website where you choose the colors, type titles in the boxes, etc. It’s much the same as setting up your blog. I don’t know anything about web design and I did our website with a different web hosting company (which turned out to be lousy which is why I did some research and found this company, which seems to have good reviews). I haven’t looked carefully at InMotion yet to see how you design pages with them, but it’s probably user-friendly. </p>

<p>If you want a fancier website, you can pay someone $600 or so to design one for you and get it all set up so that you can easily type in new info when you need to. This might be a worthwhile investment in getting your project off the ground.</p>

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<p>Timely,</p>

<p>Your advice is golden. I cannot thank you enough. I would have never thought of the YMCA. What a wonderful idea! I have contacted our church’s website designer and he is considering helping me out if he can squeeze it in. </p>

<p>My biggest problem is getting together the starting costs. Today I scored some patriotic cupcake liners and cupcake mixes. I’m hoping to sell a few of those around town and gather some funds. However, I love your idea about asking organizations to help with the costs. I know my grandpa’s retirement home had a craft center and always let me use their paper, glue, scissors, etc. They were just so happy to be involved. </p>

<p>I plan on contacting the local newspaper and several girl’s magazines (American Girl, Girls World, etc) with “girl power” once this whole thing really gets going. My last four years of school were so focused on getting into Brown that I didn’t get to push this project as far as I would have liked. Now is my chance and I really want to run with it. </p>

<p>Also, in case anyone is interested in starting a project of their own I found a great site this morning:</p>

<p>[Do</a> Something | Project Development](<a href=“http://www.dosomething.org/project_development]Do”>http://www.dosomething.org/project_development) </p>

<p>that is very helpful. </p>

<p>Thank you very, very much. I’ll keep you updated on my progress. :)</p>

<p>Emily</p>

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<p>Regarding fund raising, it seems like your costs won’t be too awfully high for this project. Perhaps you could fund it with a part-time job. I would think that your $ per hour for making and selling cupcakes will be pretty low. If you work 15 hours a week, even at minimum wage you’d have about $90/week. Of course, with gas costs these days, that might not be enough. :-/</p>

<p>Look on Craigslist under “Gigs”. Sometimes there are one day events that they hire people for…handing out promo literature at an event and things like that. Be careful though, sometimes they seem to be looking for girls to star in their “movies”.</p>

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<p>The only similar project our son did was following 9/11. He created (on the computer, not by hand) a sympathy card (with the university community being the primary “sender”) and got the contact names and addresses for survivors of the deceased and (after getting approval from the university administration, which was remarkably quick), set up a table in front of the student union and sold the cards for $1 each and had the students, faculty, and staff handwrite the address for the person on the list they were sending it to (and then that name got checked off so it wasn’t used again) and sign it personally with their own name and any special message they wished to add and then they were given a stamp to put on it and the mail box was just a few feet from the table for them to mail it. The proceeds went to the Sept. 11th Fund. I am thinking we (our family) just donated the envelopes and cards, but were reimbursed for the postage, so it wasn’t like a full dollar for every card went to the charity, but over half did.</p>

<p>So maybe you could find a spot to sell the cards or even have people make the cards while also donating to the cause? Habitat for Humanity used to sell little white cardboard “bricks” for students to decorate on the spot and either keep if they wished or give to a “wall” display at the university, and plenty of people (my son included) were game to both decorate and donate.</p>

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<p>I like your idea LazyBum! Perhaps this would be a good way to get adults involved. My pastor asked if I would speak in church about the project. Maybe I could set up a booth outside after with premade cards and let them do just that. :slight_smile: </p>

<p>Emily</p>