This weekend I conducted an awareness campaign about children pay children in my community. The main goal of the event was to raise awareness and interest in our charity. Before the campaign, my mom and I had to ask the property owner for permission had out brochures, masks with the children pay children logos on them, as well as my business cards.

We chose to set up our tables at our community gate, we knew that’s where we would receive most traffic, and on top of that, there are many playgrounds not too far from the gate where parents and children would come to play, so we could target a wider range of people. I was a little apprehensive at the beginning of the event because I had never done this type of activity with strangers before, and because children pay children is an American non-profit organization，I was worried that Chinese parents might have a hard time accepting it.
Once I got it going, I learned that all my worries were superfluous. It didn’t go very well at first, mainly due to the cold weather therefore fewer people chose to commute that day. But soon I found my first audience, a mother. I introduced the charity content and composition with the brochure and convinced her that she could buy some children’s picture books for her child. Although the explanation went well, the mother still was confused about the purpose of the charity. My sister in law came to the rescue,she introduced the website to her, and showed her exactly where and how our books could be purchased etc. Finally, the content mother walked off with our pamphlet, masks and business cards and said she would look into it when she got home. Through this first interaction, I realized that my words were not clear enough. I needed to put myself in the shoes of the stranger instead of just going over my lines. So I read the brochure again from beginning to end, organized my language and even took a few notes on paper. When it was time for me to introduce our charity it to the next group.it went much smoother and the audience was able to understand it clearly.
After a while, I decided to walk into the community looking for additional suitable audiences. I spoke to many parents and students, letting that know that parents and students are the two types of people that could both support and gain the most out of our charity. Perhaps because our charity is related to English books, and parents want their children to read more English books as a second language, I was able to get some high school students interested in writing and submitting English stories to us. Also after learning that our charity helps children in poor
areas, brought more empathy from parents with children. These educated children or parents with children who are paying more and more attention to English have become the most suitable and largest audience for our charity.
My aunt and I handed out brochures from afternoon to evening with more and more people interested in learning more about the charity. Almost all the brochures were handed out. Overall, it was a very valuable experience for me. I was able to develop my communication skills and how to speak in an organized and constructed manner. I even gained some leadership experience setting and planning the whole thing out!

However, for my next activity I plan to translate our pamphlet into Chinese as well, since many parents couldn’t read or speak English.