A soda drought, are you serious?!?

[Martinez]

This is extremely off topic and I don’t mind if the Mods choose to close this threat but first just hear me out: A soda drought, are you serious?!?

$1 is enough money to support a person in Africa for 1 year.
Drink only Water at the Regionals this year and donate it to 1000wells.com
Just $10 is enough to support a lifetime.

Three weeks ago, I was extremely moved by a fellow Non Prof called 1000wells.com, which is doing exactly what it sounds: build 1000 new wells in the most desolate sections of Africa by raising money through small personal contributions. What really got to me, beyond the passion of the speaker, is that they are truly empowering women and children who want these wells so as not needing to walk five hours a day for ultimately unsafe water. In fact I was further surprised to learn that the National Academy of Engineering named “providing access to clean water” as a top 14 challenge of our generation.

I think I finally figured some things out:
This took a lot of soul searching so just trust me. I’ve never really truly been an engineer, though I have the brain of one and a piece of paper that says I am. One of my roles in life is to motivate the next generation of engineers to help solve these massive problems in the world. In fact, I wouldn’t mind killing that Dilbert Stereotype if we had the chance. FIRST has been an extremely powerful focusing force for that energy, so as to bring so many passionate people on board. And I want to help as much and as often as I can.

So here is where I figure FIRST comes in…

Some of you may know about my efforts to create a FIRST Robotics team in the Binghamton Area. You’ll also realize that it’s been a bit… unsuccessful. Listening to this speaker I realized a very important point: I’m $#@% privileged. Really $#@% privileged. The amount of money I have, and the amount of money we use in this organization, is incredibly enormous. And don’t get me wrong, I DO feel it’s well spent, however we are an extremely small minority literally forging a new society. Yet, how can I convince a Company Exec to give $10,000 if I can’t convince people like you and me to give a simple five bucks to any equally note worthy cause.

So here’s what I intend to do…
No soda at the Regionals. God it will be hard to do, but every time I would get a soda instead $2 will be going into my pocket. Further more, I’ll be making buttons. You can find a copy of the forms here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2096. Unfortunately due to limited time there will likely not be too many. I will be handing out these buttons. The only condition to receive one of these buttons is you must go on a soda drought with me AND get one other person to as well. I’ll also be excepting donations as well. You can find me at the Rochester and Philly.

God Bless and Go FIRST!

[ebarker]

I'm going to pipe in here with a few cents worth of comments considering we have just been down this road.

Some time ago we started trying some things out that served multiple purposes: a) do something good and b) give us a moment to tell our audience how modern engineering is related to (a)

One of these is a fundraiser for building a well in Namibia. There are lot of people doing this.

Key points to know.
Use this opportunity to go beyond the usual fundraiser and explain how modern engineering has provided clean water and how more engineering is needed to solve the problem.

Be fully prepared to explain the money flow. typical questions - are you personally going to put in the well. who puts in the well. how much money do you keep, etc....

Asking people to give up money or give up anything is frankly tough. Better yet, sell them something they want anyway.

Late last summer we had a robotics booth to promote FIRST mission, show off the robot, jazz up the kids, explain engineering and water. and we sold water as a fundraiser on this warm day. There were moms that literally were misty eyed over this.

Then we sold school spirit items at the ball game. Very frankly the item had to be something people wanted.

And currently we sell battery charger mod kits to FIRST team. See this http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...2&postcount=12
You need to have a FAQ like this one here

We learned that many venues are almost always under contract to protect an existing vendor. As luck would have it we worked very hard and got into a venue and will be able to repeat this in the future. And it is a great venue to promote FIRST also.

Looking back over the past year,
the summer town festival has merit - you get a robotics presentation booth. people are thirsty, you sell water and tell them about robotics and modern engineering. Plus you get to protect the vendors that don't sell water. This works !

The other two items are things that people are gonna want and/or need to buy.

Good luck,

[Martinez]

Just to clarify...
I will not be soliciating: thats asking people for money.
I will be just handing out buttons and spreading a message.
If others want to jump in and help in any form, great!
Personally I'm doing this for me, a calling if you were.

Figure 3 days at 5 sodas per day = $30, a decent donation.
The important thing is even the small stuff matters.
Every dollar ultimately goes somewhere after all.