Christmas fundraising project: kid's zone at the Christmas fair

How it’s raining and we had to shift the table into the covered area

Creating a groupchat

Teddies coming in at the last second

Having to balance preparing the stall and preparing for exams

Investigation – Understanding needs, aims, and possibilities, research, feasibility, and purpose

Originally, it was just the parents running the Christmas Fair, filling it predominantly with their own small businesses and entrepreneurial adventures. However, a few years back, the school recognised the opportunity to incorporate a student-led aspect to the fair, which would also help support a worthy cause.

Before we started working on creating a stall for the children, we had to understand what the kids and parents would be most interested in. As a class, we began identifying previously successful Christmas stalls such as Adopt a Teddy, the Christmas Raffle, decorate your own cookie, face painting, and Pop a Cup. Ultimately, we recognized that the key to an appealing stall was to have some sort of interactive element to it that made the whole experience more gratifying and felt like an exciting game. We then tried to identify which activity we would enjoy preparing the most to fully put our heart into the task. A table filled with all the possible stands was drawn up on the whiteboard, and we all put our hands up based on the stall that resonated the most with us. Then, based on that, the groups were created. I elected to help organise the teddy stand because even though I had run the second-hand book stand last year and managed to raise 72 euros and had a pretty good understanding of how to run that specific stall, I wanted a task that involved less ‘heavy stock’ management and allowed me to express myself more creatively. Additionally, knowing that the Adopt a Teddy stand has been a generational school favourite, we intended to serve it justice; however, even at the very beginning, we knew it would not be an easy task due to such high expectations, especially since the Christmas fair would coincide with our exam week, so our time would be very limited.

In the following CAS class, we split up into our groups and tried to grasp the aim of what we were trying to achieve: delivering a cheerful stall full of the festive mood, which simultaneously helped raise money for the important causes that the Hummingbird Initiative and La Matica support. We decided that success would be measured through the number of smiles we were able to generate, and not only the amount of money raised. We did not set an aim for the amount of money we wanted to raise from the stall because we believed that it would add unnecessary pressure and maybe even impact our performance negatively on the day. Then, we created a list of the supplies we would need to create the stand, as well as where we would source them from. I.e. card, felt tip coloured pen, string, a cardboard box for donations, and most importantly, stuffed animals. Additionally, we created a rough schedule of when we would get the teddy donations, create the donation box, create the story tags, and make the raffle tickets. Next, we created a poster to advertise our need for teddy donations that would then be hung up around school and used when visiting classes to spread the word. When we went around classes to try and gauge the excitement for the stall, but since we were in secondary school whilst doing this, we truly did not fully understand how the primary school kids felt about the stall, which limited our understanding of how many teddies we would need on the day of the fair.

Preparation – Planning, organisation, and roles (also budgeting, logistics, delegation)

As the days progressed, we grew anxious to see our cardboard box of Teddy donations remaining empty. Therefore, we decided we would continue to go around classes and communicate the urgency of donations. Additionally, we asked Ms Palmer to help spread the word in the primary school to see if we could get donations for both schools, even though we knew that primary school kids would be more reluctant to part with their beloved stuffed animals. Since the donations were slow coming in, we decided to get a head start on making the tags that would include a short story on each teddy. Initially, we started by painting pieces of card in festive colours such as red, gold, and forest green. However, gold was not at our disposal, but we did attempt to create a green out of the yellow and blue acrylic paint; lamentably, it turned into more of a swamp green. Furthermore, when we set the tags to dry outside, the wind blew them all away, and we were left to clean up a giant mess. We did not let this discourage us, so after cleaning up and placing the tags back onto a large piece of card, we left them to dry inside the common room, to protect them from the outside elements.

The following week, we still had no donations, and we were not satisfied with the aesthetics of the tags. We decided to start over with the tags, and instead of painting them, we would get some regular white card and draw some Christmas designs onto it. We turned our production process into a division of labour; half of us cut the cards out and drew the designs onto them, whilst the other half came up with entertaining stories for each and every one of the teddies. However, as the tags progressed, we would help each other come up with stories that would link between the teddies and drawings that would grab the kids’ attention, regardless of what we were individually working on. When the time came to create the raffle tickets that would determine which teddy each kid would end up adopting, I suggested we repurposed the originally painted cards to minimise our waste and speed up the production process.

Throughout the following days, since we were almost done with our preparation based on the amount of teddies that had been donated, I tried to help out the other stalls in whatever way I could, refilling hot glue guns, tidying up the classroom, and trying out the test batch of decorated cookies. I was in awe as I saw our entire class working together towards a common aim. From the face painting group, coming up with intricate designs and practicing their skills on each other in preparation, to the Pop a Cup team that created a beautiful board with wonderful prizes sourced from cheap stores to keep their budget low, to maximize the amount of money going to charity.

On the day of the fair, a large number of stuffed animal donations came in, a total of 32! We were so excited to see our donation box filled that morning; however, we knew that meant we would have to create even more tags and stories during the lunch break before the Christmas fair. Luckily, we all managed to meet up in one of the classrooms after having eaten our lunch, and we rapidly created more raffles and tags just in time for the fair.

I was filled with joy as kids passed by the adopt a Teddy stand and marveled at the toys we had on display. Within 20 minutes, most of our stuffed animals vanished. To not lose track of the amount of change given, the amount of money made, the raffle tickets that had to be taken out of the box, and the teddies that were being given away, we divided the task amongst the four of us. Connie handled keeping track of the money we made, Nea handed out the Teddies, I was in charge of giving change and managing the raffle tickets, and Noa was in charge of keeping our finances in order. We tried to make the experience as magical as possible and encouraged the kids to read the tag attached to their teddy to learn more about their new friend. When our last two teddies were left, there was clearly a favourite one amongst the children, a beautiful, fluffy, snow white goose that looked brand new. We had around 5 kids huddled around the stalls, hoping to win the goose, but we knew that only one of them would end up taking it home. Therefore, we decided to give the first two kids to arrive at the stall the opportunity to pick the goose from the raffle. Fortunately, the other three kids found it fair, and nobody left the event upset.

Once our stand was out of stock, we promptly tidied up and dedicated our full attention to either helping other stands or running the Hummingbird advocacy stand. We noticed that the raffle stand was being hidden in the corner of the courtyard. Luckly those running it went around the primary school to spread awareness. The face painting stand gained a lot of popularity, and there were not enough painters to keep up with the demand, so people from other teams came to help out once they were done managing their own stands. The cookie decorating stand faced competition from numerous edible product stands run by parents who were more familiar with the industry, such as the chocolate-covered strawberry van, the macaroon van, and professionally baked and pre-decorated teddy bears. So, it made us think that in the future it would be easier to raise money for charity if we weren’t competing against established for-profit businesses during the event.

· What went well during the event at your stall or in your area of responsibility?

· How effectively did your stall run on the day? Consider workflow, customer engagement, timing, and organisation.

· What challenges did you face on the day, and how did you adapt or problem-solve in the moment? (unexpected demand, materials running low, miscommunication)

· How did you approach customer service when interacting with young children and their parents?

· How did you collaborate with peers during the event? Give examples of effective teamwork.

· How did you keep your stall efficient and appealing?

· How did the young children respond to your stall? What did you notice about their engagement?

· In what ways did you demonstrate creativity, initiative, or leadership during the event?

· How did you uphold safety, fairness, and inclusivity for all participants?

· How did your stall’s pricing, layout, and atmosphere impact customer engagement and sales?

· What real-time decisions did you have to make, and what business or organisational thinking guided them?

REFLECTION + DEMONSTRATION – Learning, outcomes, and personal growth

Being able to take part in this project helped me develop my communication and organisational skills, whilst coordinating my stand with my own team as well as with the other teams. Witnessing the stand’s success and our contribution to raising money for The Hummingbird Initiative and La Matica boosted my confidence, and I was particularly proud of my team and all the effort we put in, especially since we had taken on the role of continuing the Adopt a Teddy stand’s famous legacy. It has encouraged me to take on leadership positions in the future, such as helping organise the EYP team at school this year, and has shown me the amount of effort required to balance my academic work alongside CAS activities, which I am overall grateful for, as it contributes to a more holistic method of education.

Since I do not have any younger siblings of my own, I enjoyed being able to spend some time with young children. I learned that it was important to talk to children in the same way I would with one of my friends, as I noticed that was when they were most comfortable. Additionally, I believe it helped prepare me for my Educaclown volunteering in the future, which also involved working with younger children.

Even though the pattern of students and parents donating teddies at the last minute has been recurring over the past years, it may have been beneficial to start advertising our need for donations earlier in the year, as well as emphasising the fact that all the efforts put in were going towards charity.

I found the CAS project to be thoroughly enriching. I learned how to prepare a CAS activity in collaboration with my team, which taught me how to approach collaborative projects as well as individual ones. I also learned how to be able to adapt to unexpected changes, like the last-minute donation of 20 teddies, only 2 hours before the Christmas Fair was about to start.

As mentioned previously, I think the DP1 stands may have been more successful in the future if they were not competing against parents’ professional for-profit businesses. Maybe in the future, the Christmas fair might be exclusively for stands aimed at raising funds for charity.

· How has participating in this project helped you develop personal skills (e.g., communication, organisation, confidence, teamwork)?

· What did you learn about working with young children?

· What impact do you think your stall and the overall event had on the participants and the fundraising goals?

· Looking back, what would you do differently if you ran this event again?

· How did this project contribute to your CAS journey overall?

· How will the skills or insights gained influence your future CAS choices or personal goals?

· What key business or event-management skills did you develop (e.g., communication, budgeting, marketing, leadership, problem-solving)?

· How can the experience inform future CAS projects or real-world event planning and leadership opportunities?