If we split into two main groups, Clothing Drive and Re-do the Closet, I would like to be on the drive team. I am a concrete random information absorber and a global-thinking visionary green. I am a dreamer, creative and innovative. And I spent this morning attending a webinar at Chiesman about how to make my innovations realities.
An organizer I am not. I stumble over little details and sometimes miss important ones. I can easily conceptualize a final goal but have no idea how to get there.
I want at least one Golden Girl to run the show and keep the idea within scale. I have a calendar for planning an event that starts four months out, so we’d best get on it J We'll need one Orange to keep the dream alive and make sure we are moving always in a forward direction, and two Blues because hanging flyers all over town is a lot of legwork and getting them printed will require their special brand finesse.
I was instrumental in planning a diaper drive in October and a community carnival the month before, so I have a picture of what a donation drive event looks like when all the pieces come together. Fortunately, visualizing the big picture is my strong point. I also have a lot of orange in me, so I’m not afraid to get out there and hang posters in every store window I can get to in the time between posters are printed and the start-date for the actual event.
For our Diaper Drive, we were able to secure a printer to sponsor the flyers. We advertised for a week leading up to the event. We got the collection bins donated on loan and returned them after the event. Donations continued to trickle in after the event, so when I went around collecting the bins, there were frequently additional items there as well. I think it would be better to have the event kick off a week of collecting donations this time. This may require a different advertising campaign.
We used the radio to promote our Diaper Drive. Rushmore Radio (?) has an application for a psa. We need drop off locations and one location for a full event. (If we have a bounce house, we’ll get more people. Just a thought.) And I called churches for our events to request they put a notice in their bulletins the week before.
To protect the identities of the tanf participants, we need a delicate marketing campaign. How can we involve Zonta to help support? Does anyone have a connection there? Is there really no way to link the items in the two clothing closets rather than continue to duplicate the service? I am still struggling to reconcile the split.
If we receive too many donations, we will need to secure storage or perhaps connect with a thrift store. CornerStone has a boutique area with better clothes; maybe them? Ideally though I think maybe a consignment shop could roll some money into the clothing closet to provide gift cards for hard-to-find shapes and sizes. Maybe, if there is a large surplus and nowhere to put it, we could gift some of the overflow to the clothe-a-kid for school event sponsored by Love, INC in August and clothe a lucky parent or two. This sort of problem is the hardest thing to prepare for because it's kind of intimidating.
I agree with Carrie, there are two main goals here: 1) organize a clothing drive and 2)Re-do the closet. Obviously the clothing drive itself will be a MUCH larger task. I am wondering if we should ALL focus on the drive and then after the actual event we could ALL focus on the Closet reorganization?? I am afraid the details involved in the clothing drive would be more successful if broken down into three subcommittees. I'm not sure what the three seperate focueses should be (one of you may have a great thought on this). My thought would be 1) contacting retailers in the community for their donations, 2) getting the word out to business women in the community to clean out their closets for us, and 3) arranging the specific of the day of the drive (main location, drop off spots, advertising, etc.)
ReplyDeleteFor the Closet reorganization it could be 1)organize donations, 2)address storage, and 3) actual display of clothing...something along those lines.
I think Carrie is right on in that we should try to have one "Color" in each subcommittee because we all have our different strengths. There were three gold and three blue and then two orange and a green.
Tracy Manning-Egge on our Steering Committee is part on Zonta, I believe. But like we talked about last week, Zonta sponsors the other closet. I got the impression that Lorena did not want to open that can of worms with linking the two closets together.
I don't think we should give any "extra" donations we receive to any thrift stores but I LOVE the idea of the clients being able to have access to the thrift stores.
What does everyone else think?
Thanks, Jennie!
ReplyDeleteA donation drive is not so consuming as you might think. I do, however, think there will be less to do with the reorganization. Between me and one co-worker, we got our donation drive together in six weeks. It requires a lot of hustling but not so much that we need all 9 of us. I wouldn't count on retailers to donate much more than space to drop off, too, actually.
I'm going to suggest we stick with what worked last time unless someone else has organized a donation drive and found a better way? My co-worker on that event can come in and talk to us if you like, too.
I have no interest in the re-org at all. I would prefer to just work on the drive. Perhaps the drive team could be the larger team since there will be more time-consuming field-work. But we need to get that team assembled asap and get to work. The dates aren't getting any further away!
And those working on the re-org can have some free time right now for additional planning while we get the drive underway.
I feel rather strongly that we need our teams decided before Wednesday so that we can continue moving forward with our project goals when we have a chance to get together in person.