Hapa LAB: Fundraising

Showing posts with label Fundraising. Show all posts

10.01.2011

1062.65

Hummm...What are you lookin' at???
The reason for the Long pause between posts.
And the short answer?
Our Junk.

So it's "Junk Clearing" time again.
Our Annual Mandarin Playgroup's Yard Sale is back! Junk Central is Chez Moi. Long driveway, perfect for displaying oldies but goodies (to others). This means all bags are dropped at my doorstep for the FUN FEST of sorting and tagging the 3 weeks before the big sale.

This time, 10 families joined in the madness!
Also new this year? An expanded "Dollar Snack Shack"!

Buying & Selling.
Pass up an opportunity for kids to practice real life transactions? Not on a Montessori mama's life! No...things are not free in life, and YES, we have to WORK for them. And that work is actually FUN...most of the time!

This little four letter word gets a bad wrap these days. WORK. It's really too bad. There are lots of way worst ones out there. "Work" is just the process of arriving at the next step of things. Nothing loaded... just a process. Yet ALOT of us spend ALOT of time trying to avoid it. It's like lifting your foot to take the next step so you can actually get somewhere, right?

Well for our Snack Shack Steps, we (with kids) made the signs, set the menu, made the inventory, then had the kids use a cash register and sell the products while trying not to consume everything themselves (lesson in self control built-in.) Work...but they felt like grown ups doing all this. And grown ups DO work, alot. Especially ones that stay home with kids all day...boy, do we work.
To be humane, we offered each child 2 snack coupons to redeem at the shack.

Why was everything a dollar?
Easy math. One item = One dollar. At ages 3-5, this math was something achievable. Minimal adult supervision, maximum independence. Although from the looks of the picture above, we may have ate most of our profits...yikes. Perhaps more adult supervision may have been wise.

After the fun hard work, we served a yummy Chinese noodle lunch complete with Boba drinks! (Yes, more food makes a happy bunch.)

More snap shots of the Big Sale!

@ the Check Out.

Snack Shop Maintenance.

Lollipops & Silly Faces...hard work.

Humm...what to eat next?

Given our jaw dropping success at last year's sale, we fell a little short of record breaking this year.
But with only a year's time to "restock" our junk, I'd say we did pretty well.

Still managed to juice this out.
1062.65
A nice chunk o'change to reuse and recycle.
Wanna go clear out some junk with some of your mommy pals?

3.23.2011

Hapa This, Hapa That.

Yum.

Why are all things Japanese SO cute?

As if the real life tasty "des-za-to" are not enough...

Now they have to make the cutie eraser version of it???

This Sweets & Tea Set can be seen at HapaCulture!

For some pocket change, you can bring this mini slice of Hapa-ness

into your own home.

With a similar name to our LAB, HapaCulture is an online stationary shop that carries everything your Japanese-culture-craving-heart desires! From high quality thematic erasers, designer stickers, origami sets, and custom bilingual stationary, an eraser is NOT just an eraser at HapaCulture.

In Japan, everything is "Art"...Check it out.

Not only is HapaCulture an uber-adorable shop to browse for that perfect stocking stuffer, birthday present, or everyday party favor, it is also owned by a dear friend of mine. W at HapaCulture has a great artistic eye for stocking her shop, and an even greater heart for reaching out to the people of Japan in this time of need.

For the month of March, HapaCulture is donating 10% of all proceeds to Japan's Disaster Relief.

HapaCulture, along with numerous crafty vendors over at Etsy, have gathered together to show their support and love for Japan...the land, the people, the culture.

Here are some of my favorite HAPA vendors:

Jojoebi Designs/Montessori Goldmine is a British Crafty Montessori Mommy blogger who lives in Japan. Jojo is also offering A Quake Appeal in light of the recent events. Tons of great Homeschooling Montessori ideas, tool PDFs, and lesson plans. A must visit for the terrific resources!!

Mee A Bee, whom I featured in a previous post about their miniature toddler messenger bags. Another Hapa Etsy vendor, Jacqui is a New Zealander living in Japan. With her own Quake Appeal, Jacqui was also one of the features on an Etsy front page dedicated to Japanese made hand crafts.

A Mee A Bee related New Zealand shop, Li'l Magoolie, is hosting an Auction for NZ and a 1,000 Crane Wish support for Japan...

The list can continue...the sentiments all the same.

10.11.2010

1816.15

It's been a while...class of 93' style.
Last post 10.01.10.

That's Tina, me, and Bek.
Looking very "high school" together.
Eating homemade flan and wearing a sage-colored apron... for the heck of it.

So what happened on 10.02.10?

Well, the "heck" happened to be a HUGE Yard Sale...
The Annual East Bay Mandarin Playgroup 8+ Multifamily Yard Sale.
To be exact.

And being the one who always over-commits with the delusion of having superhero resistance to fatigue (sigh), I volunteered to organize this whole thing. From taking drop-offs, pricing all items, making signage, and displaying, this was going to be DA KILLA yard sale that I always dreamed of shopping at.

1 week of sorting and tagging, 2 extremely dark eye circles, 3 sleep deprived nights, 4 aching limbs, and 5 fabulous girlfriends taking "HELP Shifts" later...we are officially, and happily, DONE!

Do I regret it?
Not for a second.

The idea started when I began to clear out Zozie's room for HapaLab. The cleaning oozed into my room, then out to the common areas. Soon, I was scheming with a few mommy pals of doing a sale together...then it ultimately became, the BEAST.