Habitat for Humanity: Third Building Trip

On the 21st of April, I went on my third and last Habitat for Humanity building trip of the year. This trip did not require as much manual labour as the previous two for me, because I worked in the new library. The National Honor Society in ISK had donated funds to the Habitat for Humanity club, which was used to pay for bookshelves, benches, and a whiteboard for the library. As an NHS member, I helped to organize and put up books in the library for the majority of the trip. These books were donated by various ISK students and teachers, and Habitat managed to gather more than 300 books. Although cataloging all of the books and organizing them was tedious work, I really enjoyed seeing the reaction of the children when they saw all of the new books. They were all extremely excited to see all of the new books that we had brought them, and they all wanted to immediately begin reading.

After cataloging the books for a couple of hours, I went to see the newly built playground. The funds raised by the Habitat for Humanity club were put towards buying swings, monkey bars and a slide, and these were put up during this building trip. The reaction we got when we put up the playground was amazing. All of the children began to play together, and you could tell how happy they were to have these things.

I really enjoyed this trip because it was completely different from any other Habitat build that I had ever been on. It was the first time that we did not work on building a house, and instead built a playground and worked in the library, and therefore, it was an extremely different experience for me. On this trip, you could really see the effect that our work had on the children of Maai Mahiu. We could tell that they were truly enjoying themselves on the playground and in the library, and we had a lot of fun playing with them as well. Unfortunately, we might not be returning to Maai Mahiu next year, as the building of the houses will be finished by the end of this summer. Hopefully, we will be able to find a new area to help with, and meet new people. I am really excited about seeing what is in store for the Habitat for Humanity club next school year!

Operations Smile: The Smile Concert '12

On the 14th of April, the Operation Smile club at ISK held a concert featuring the Composers' Club. In this concert, members of the Composers' Club performed, while Operation Smile members sold food and drinks. All of the profits went towards the Operation Smile Mission in Kenya. Tons of planning went into this concert, and a lot of time was spent in preparation for it. I, along with the other members of the club, had to organize all of the logistics, such as the venue, date, time, ticket prices, posters, food, drinks, tables, program etc. It was also our responsibility to keep the Composers' Club members aware of our ideas, and take all of their ideas into account. I was extremely stressed for the half month leading up to the concert, because as the president of the club, I had to make sure that everything was going according to schedule and everyone was doing their part to help organize this event. I wanted the event to turn out really well and for a lot of people to come to it, because I was eager for the club to raise as much money as it could so as to pay for the surgeries of several children. I therefore tried my hardest to make it an enjoyable night.

On the night of the event, we had a turnout that was much greater than what we were expecting. We sold more than 200 tickets! Everything went according to plan: the Composers' Club put on a great show and the Operation Smile members sold a lot of food and many drinks. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and Ms. Flaminia DeAgostini, the Development Coordinator of the Operation Smile Mission in Kenya, who we had invited to the event, told us that she was extremely happy with the work we had put into organizing the event. From this event, we managed to make 148,000 ksh, which went towards paying for the surgeries of 7 children, with a bit of money left overs. We were ecstatic about this amount, as it surpassed our goal by a huge amount. The members of the club are eager to raise even more money in the upcoming months, and we are constantly coming up with new fundraising ideas.