Arts for arts

Last week was my first post-Africa fundraiser, and it actually turned out much better than I could have dreamed off! It was hosted at the primary school I had gone to, St George's, Windsor Castle. After having received their letters from the Namibian children, it was decided that the theme for the event should be Africa - very appropriate.

Every child from reception to year 8 created a piece of art with the theme of Africa. This included sunset silhouettes of African animals such as elephants, giraffes and cheetahs, drawings of tribal styled masks and huts, and some slightly more abstract ideas such as an aeroplane with the title 'visiting Africa'. A local company then framed each of these pieces of art, and displayed them in th gym for our very own art exhibition. This allowed all the parents to come and visit, and to purchase their children's work - any copies of any other that they thought were particularly good.

All the children at St George's are placed into one of four houses, Vindictive, Victory, Rodney or Revenge (named after famous battle ships). The event was hosted by my old house - Vindictive, but happily all the children wanted to get involved and so all the houses ended up taking part.

It was a really lovely atmosphere for the event. All the children were so excited seeing their art work displayed in a proper exhibition, and I think the parents were all proud to see their children's work framed. I also had a stall during the event, so that I could talk to any children or parents that wanted to hear more about my time in Namibia, or wanted to learn more about the reason behind the event.

I was also selling a few little products of my own, to try to help with the fundraising! I had the plastic bag bracelets which my Namibian children had made - which both pupils and parents seemed to be fascinated with, the gorgeous traditional beaded bracelets (which all sold out) and some greeting cards. Lots of people after seeing my photos told me how good they were and that they looked really good. So I decided to try to test it out! I had 100 cards printed out with a mix of my photos printed on the front, and happily over half of them sold!



I don't actually know for certain how much money was made from the event - although I will certainly let you know when I find out! All the profit that was made from the day is ginger towards buying art supplies and sending them out to Namibia - thus the title for the event, 'arts for arts.' Which. I personally thought was quite a cute idea!

I'm currently attempting to find some companies based in Namibia itself that I could buy supplies from, since that would save quite a lot of money on sending them out! I'm also trying to get in touch with shipping companies to see if they could help me with transportation cost (since it's for a charitable reason). I'm not having much luck so far, but I still have some time to get it all sorted :)

Overall it was a really incredible couple of days. Pupils, parents and staff all seemed to really get involved with the event and I think it worked since it was quite an original idea for fundraising. I would definately recommend it to others! I'll let you know about the result :)

'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing' Edmund Burke