I am always passionate about non-profit charity projects. I wanted to help people in need and make the world a better place. When I looked at past Cosmo projects such as the one that Felix and Moussa did to build a school in Katiali, Côte d’Ivoire, or the one that Sharyl did to support the preschool in Lukoyanov, Russia, I said to myself, “This is so cool! I wish I could also do something like this.”
My opportunity came in March. I went to visit my friend Sarah in Tanzania, who was volunteering in Arusha, Tanzania on HIV/AIDS prevention and education. My heart was stolen by the beauty of the country and the simplicity of life there. I met a lot of HIV/AIDS patients and orphans. They are such kind and simple people. A strong urge came to me to do something for them.
I decided to raise tuition fees for a group of orphan girls in Arusha. My initial idea was just to making a Web site and a fundraising calendar. Soon I was thrilled to find out that the Cosmopolitan Club chose my project as the recipient of the donations from the Thanksgiving benefit dinner. This allows more orphans to be funded to go to secondary schools.
Web site, calendar, and Thanksgiving dinner–the party began!
The first fun part was to pick a name for the Web site. Should it be “tumaini” (hope in Swahili), “amani” (peace), “malaika” (angel), or “moja dunia” (one world)? At last “moja dunia” stood out, because nobody else was using it! I did my best to keep the Web site simple yet informative. It was the best I could do having only abundant computer skills but little art design knowledge.
Then we needed a brochure to let people know about the project “moja dunia” and the Thanksgiving dinner. “This is hopeless,” I said to myself. So I turned to Kate, the graphic design guru of the Cosmo family. Kate not only quickly came up with a beautiful design of the brochure, but also offered to help with the calendar. “Thank God!” I felt a big weight lifted from my shoulder.
Unfortunately my relief didn’t last too long. It turned out that making a good calendar is a lot harder than I thought, even with Kate’s help. First of all most of the photos I submitted to Kate did not make her professional cut. After rounds of negotiations we finally agreed on the photos to use. Kate then spent countless hours trying to make the calendar look perfect. At the end the biggest challenge was to find a print shop that would agree to print a small number of copies (less than 100) at a reasonable price. Kate contacted almost all the print shops in the greater Pittsburgh area.
“We have to get sponsors for the calendar!” Kate and I started going from door to door, friend to friend, coworker to coworker; from small business to mid-size corporations, non-profit organizations, and internet start-ups, asking whether anybody would place an advertisement on the last two pages of the calendar.
After a week’s hard work and much frustration, we finally filled up the two pages, and lowered the production cost by 30%. Kate contributed to at least 75% of the sponsorship wins.
Trying to gain publicity for the project and for the Thanksgiving dinner, I contacted all the local newspapers in central Illinois. Finally the Buzz magazine from the Illini Media agreed to write about us. A journalist went to the Cosmo Club to interview Andrea and Sharyl. I was also interviewed through the telephone.
A week before the Thanksgiving dinner, Daniela created an event on Facebook, the popular student social network Web site, to invite all her friends to the Thanksgiving dinner. Word quickly spread, thanks to Iva, Davide, Ajay, and Lev. I also posted our Thanksgiving dinner on the Daily Illini’s event calendar and the News Gazette’s website.
Everybody put in a lot of effort trying to make the Thanksgiving dinner successful. Just to name a few: Andrea got us some food donations; Sharyl and her friends from Sutton Place made the turkey stuffing; Daniela and Inaki stuffed the turkeys; Ana and Gabi made their famous appetizer; Christina donated pumpkin pies; Davide helped me to get some last-minute donations from downtown Champaign; Markus, Neils, and Lev helped preparing the mashed potatoes; and as usual the friends of Cosmo Club from the community came over and helped on various things during the dinner.
The evening of the Thanksgiving dinner went by the fastest I have ever experienced in my life. A photographer from the Buzz came. A lot of people showed up. I gave a presentation; people seemed to like it. I made some new friends, and met a lot of old friends. So many people came up to me after the presentation to purchase a calendar; some made a donation without asking for anything in return. I was overwhelmed.
Looking back, “Happiness is in the doing, and putting your passion into action,” I cannot agree with this saying more. There have been frustrations, setbacks, challenges, and numerous things that I wish we had done better. But after all it has been such a pleasant journey for me, and I will continue to enjoy it through selling the rest of the calendars.
I won’t stop here. I will look for ways to do more for Arusha, and I will keep my eyes open for the next project. Last but definitely not least, I will always be supportive to the Cosmopolitan Club.
(Editor’s Note: A total of $1,200 was raised from the Thanksgiving Benefit Dinner.)
Zhong-ning (standing at far left) gives his presentation
at the Thanksgiving Dinner.