Bill's School Fundraising Experience - Bazaar Navideno

As the day of our school's annual Christmas fundraiser drew nearer, it became clear to Sue that they needed lots of help. So who better to turn to first and foremost than her husband?

My best fund-raising talent in an artsy Waldorf world turns out to be poi spinning. So the week before the event, we went to the local fabric store and bought 100 meters of shoelace, five square meters of fabric, as well as 150 plastic bags, 2 bags of rubber bands, and 5 kilos of rice. The plan was for me to man a booth - with a little help - and demonstrate poi spinning while also helping people make their own. We did a few prototypes, which actually came out really good, and left the rest to be built at the fair. I was inclined to just make them all ahead of time, but given the school's emphasis on "hand work," I was persuaded to make this a crafts and poi project. I also brought my fire spinning gear and two liters of white gas to do a fire show or two.

Bryce's friend Nicholas spent the night, so I was able to miss out on the early setup experience, and watch the kids for the morning. We got to the fair at 11:00 or so, and got the poi table all set up which wasn't hard. I was called upon for a fire show to initiate the fair, which went off fine. We had maybe twenty people watching, and this got a few kids interested in the poi thing.

During the course of the day, I spent most of my time helping kids make their own poi, and occasionally demonstrating some moves as well. Laurel and Fernando have learned the "three beat weave" move, which is impressive - especially for eight-year-olds, and they were hanging around the booth spinning, which helped get more people over. And then once a few kids learned that you could take this talent and then light it on fire, we got more and more interest. All in all, we probably sold 50 sets of poi, which isn't too bad.

Lucia - Fernando's twenty-something cousin and also a poi spinner - was helping at the booth, and she brought her fire gear as well. We planned a second fire show for the afternoon, which got the kids excited. A Mexican Waldorf mom named Amanda is also a fire spinner, and I chatted with her about the upcoming show. It turns out she had her fire gear in the car, and asked if she could spin fire with us. Of course! Now we had three performers for the afternoon show. We were scheduled to perform at 4:00 or so, but Amanda hadn't yet returned, so we decided to go after the guitar player, and be the final entertainment act of the day.

While were getting ready, Amanda asked Arnulfo (Fernando's cousin from the Fire Fiesta two nights ago) if he would drum for us. Of course! Now our act was really coming together - albeit spontaneously.

When our turn came, we had about 80 people waiting to see the fire show. Arnulfo did a five minute drum jam, and then we started. Amanda went first, then Lucia joined her, and then I jumped in when Amanda's fire started to go out. The crowd was into it, and it went well. Amanda went back out after Lucia's fire went out, and then I exited when my time has expired. While Amanda was performing for a second time, a woman came up to me and asked if she could borrow my Poi. Why not? She got my gear ready, then lit them and jumped into the act. She was awesome! (It was especially awesome to see her use unfamiliar gear out of the blue.) Our fly-by-night fire show was a huge hit, and was a great cap to the fair. Here's a video Sue shot:



As a community event, the fair went over really well. The entertainment was really good (besides the fire show). There were about 35 booths, some parent or teacher initiated, and some outside vendors who donate 20% of their sales to the school. As far as a fundraising success goes, it could probably have done better, but this is Mexico. The numbers are pretty amazing/horrifying. Laurel's school in San Francisco has 400 kids, and they raise $250,000 at their fair. This school has 100 kids, and their goal was to raise $2,000, which they probably achieved. The pricing for my booth was determined in advance - 15 pesos per set of poi, or $1.20. So I worked from 11 to 6:30 and raised $60 or so. The school had a hard time getting volunteers, which could be cultural, lack of leadership, or some other factor. The Americans in general were more present in the parent volunteer corps, and Liz and Fernando did an incredible amount of work. Sue is still decompressing, as she helped plan this for several weeks, and has a lot of ideas to make the whole thing work better.

(The Hillers - Sam and Anne-from-Baltimore - manned a booth selling books. The house they just bought had about 100 John Grisham type books that came with it, so they sold them at the fair. Sam named their booth Hillers' Cheap Thrillers.)

Overall it was a great experience. For me, it was neat to see the kids get excited about my passion of poi spinning. And it felt good to help the school, as well as get the experience of fundraising in a different language and culture.

It's tempting to just write a check if I were to do this again, but I think I would still do the same thing. Some of the local Mexican kids bought poi from the fair, and for them, 15 pesos is probably a lot. (The next day, I walked through the park and saw a Mexican kid playing with his poi, and another kid recognized me from the fair. That was awesome!)