The wait is over X2!

I can officially say that the wait is over for two things that I have put a lot of time and energy in lately- Grounds for Change Coffee Fundraiser at Dickinson and Benjamin Britten Ceremony of Carols concert at St. Stephens!
The past month or so I have been working on them so much and putting a lot of effort in them! I am happy to say that they are both complete and I have some breathing room now!
The coffee came on Thursday afternoon at work at 2pm and I sorted 228 bags of coffee straight through until 4:30. I was putting the coffee in bags according to who sold the coffee and labeling each bag and putting a sticker on the bag stating that this was a fundraiser. We had one slight slip up when I miscounted the amount of ground decaf coffee I needed, but we still had some from the order we had gotten earlier, so crisis adverted! One thing that was very interesting though was the count of coffee was not correct. Grounds for Change sent us 15 extra bags of coffee, Agate Pass and Peru, and they said to just sell it as we normally would, that will be a 100% profit for service trips, which is great! I am very pleased about this coffee fundraiser, there is talk that we will do it again in the spring, but this time selling tea as an option as well. I have learned so much from doing this. I have a fairly strong fundraising background and have been doing it since I was 15 with Caps for Kids. Thinking back to when I was in high school, how did I do Caps for Kids? It seems like so long ago and a complete blur, but I did it and raised a lot of money for children with cancer. But how did I do that? I remember vividly watching the Minnesota Twins game on TV and Mike Redmond came on talking about Red's Rally Caps for Kids and how you pay  one dollar to wear a cap to school and all proceeds go to getting a child an autographed hat or scarf by their favorite celebrity. I looked over to my mom and told her I was going to do it- and I did! I'm not completely sure how I went through the motions to do it though. I remember contacting the superintendent and going through all the different promotions like television, radio, and newspapers and asking for donation requests from local businesses. Grounds for Change seemed new to me, but its definitely not. I think a lot of my eeriness on it was that it had been awhile since I did a fundraiser and I am not just a high school girl anymore, I am trying to build my professional career and if this failed, it would fall back on me. That was more incentive for me to do well and be as completely organized as I absolutely could be. I have learned a lot about working with students through fundraising because this is dealing with selling and receiving money daily, whereas Caps for Kids was a one day event. I definitely see programming and fundraising in my future, I love being able to plan for something and then get the satisfaction of seeing it turn out in the end. That is the main reason why I loved Mavericks After Dark at Minnesota State so much. Mavericks After Dark is a once a month, late night activity, that happens in our student union to reduce risky behavior but set up, the event, and take down all happens within 7 hours of each other and to me that is very fulfilling. MAD is arguably the most stressful IMPACT program but I enjoyed it a lot and learned so much in the year I did it.

St. Stephens Cathedral choir had a performance on Saturday afternoon and I am pretty pleased about how it went! We performed many different songs including Peace Advent, O Come Emmanuel, and then the infamous Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten. Ceremony of Carols is a medley that is 9 songs long and lasts roughly 19 minutes to perform and let me tell you... Its not easy! Our choir is
good, we have a lot of strong voices but we only practice once a week on Thursdays so it was stressful to learn. For the past couple weeks we did choir rehearsals twice a week but that is still not much! During the performance, we had a harpist, slideshow, Christmas trees, candlelight, and soloist. I have mentioned time and time again that I love the ladies in choir, they are what make me keep wanting to go back. I love spending time with Tina, silly Sue, and Judy. They make me feel like I am definitely wanted, I may not have the best voice in the world but it is not horrible and they give me praise on the times I succeed and then help me when I am struggling- I am lucky to have them! Today at service is the last time I will sing with them until the New Year, that seems like a long time from now but the time I am gone, I will be at home!
I GO HOME TO IOWA THIS WEEK! I have been saying that all day, with that much enthusiasm and my bags are packed, minus my daily use items! I have taking the train from Harrisburg to Philly at 9:15pm on Wednesday and then hanging out in the airport until 4am when I can go back through security and check my bags in. My plane leaves at 6:20am Thursday. During that time in Philly, I will most likely sit on my bags and watch movies on my laptop, I doubt I will sleep much, if at all, but it doesn't really matter because I will be going home to see my friends and family! I have been waiting for this moment for 4 months and have been counting down the days since 130 days to go.
Also, one of the people that help the Sycamore House so much that we care about dearly is having some major health issues and scares. Reggie was diagnosed this week with Acute Leukemia and is rather scared right now. Reggie works for the school and has a cleaning business that cleans it every night, he also works for the city of Harrisburg with security, he does the sound at every service and helps maintain crowd control at Tuesday Community Dinners. Reggie is always very enthusiastic and caring. He would also do anything for us, so please keep him in your thoughts!
I am not entirely sure if I will be writing a blog while I am home- I may do one when I get back to Harrisburg, so stayed tuned to what I decide to do. Just in case, here is a Christmas card that Ally made! The Sycamore House and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Much love,
Katie

Fundraising Galore!

Whew- What a week! This week has been busy but it doesn't feel like it went by very quickly. It seems like so long ago it was Thanksgiving and the house was empty, but that was only a week ago. I am back into my routine and back to work, which is a good thing!

Grounds for Change coffee

This week at work, I submitted the final order for coffee though the organization Grounds for Change. First of all, I am incredibly impressed by this company! For fundraising, you email a form of what coffee you want, the number of ground or whole, and then call to confirm payment via phone. They are so friendly on the phone and say at least three times "Thank you so much for your support, you have no idea how much we appreciate it." Now, I don't know if they are incredibly busy all the time because it is based in Washington, but they always call me by name and seem so sincere! The coffee is roasted 24 hours before shipment and it has been roasted and shipped within 48 hours of my phone call. The most impressive thing was my last order. I am very excited to announce that the students of Dickinson pre-sold 228 bags of coffee! Which was roasted and shipped in two days and will be in Carlisle, PA by Thursday this week- A week before I was expecting it! Grounds for Change has gone above and beyond my expectations- this is the first time we have gone through them and I foresee going through them a lot in the future! I found them via Google when I looked for fair trade coffee. If you need organic, fair trade, shade grown, CO2 free, freshly roasted coffee, I would suggest going through them! Dickinson has sold almost 330 bags of coffee through this company, which for this fundraiser is almost a $2,000.00 profit, I am honored to have been the person to go between the students and the company!
I spent my entire Monday creating a spreadsheet that is color coordinated to the coffee and the student who sold the coffee, I will be making tags throughout the week for the coffee when it arrives and then it will be distributed to those who purchased it! Also, at work I have been working on a community service fair that will be happening sometime in February. This is a fair where members of the Carlisle community can come to Dickinson College and tell the students what they do and offer volunteer opportunities. I am in the very beginning stages of this, but it already seems to be going well, but I need to contact all of the community partners.
The St. Stephen's choir has been working hard on Benjamin Britten's: Ceremony of Carols, which we will be performing next Saturday at 4pm at St. Stephens. I had never sang it before, but this medley is not simple. It is a series of 10 songs, including a procession and a few solos. I am a little nervous that the concert is so close and we have never sang the whole thing through before. The church is going to look beautiful; they have six Christmas trees that will be decorated, a PowerPoint with the words translated into English (the song is old English with some Latin), a harpist, organ, piano, violin, and we will be proceeding into the church. The church will look gorgeous, I just hope our sound can compare to the look. We have one more rehearsal on Thursday, which is good because we need it. I have been having some trouble singing the high notes in practice because we go over it multiple times, but I am a soprano 2 and some of those high notes take all my energy and it leaves me sounding very hoarse at the end of the practice. I am very lucky that I am friends with some of the ladies and gents in the choir, I do not think it would be as enjoyable without them. They are keeping me sane and make singing fun.


Sycamore House at Liberian Meal Fundraiser

On Saturday, the Sycamore House hosted a fundraiser for Ebola Relief Efforts. One of my house members was born and raised in Liberia and her family made a traditional Liberian meal as a fundraiser. I have never had Liberian food, but it was delicious! There was fried rice, baked chicken, plantain, potato salad, and steam veggies. You got the meal with a free will donation and the fundraiser raised just shy of $900.00 which will all go to West Africa. The church has been very supportive of this event because they donated money to buy the food to prepare for the fundraiser as well as give us the space for the meal. Everyone that came to this event was from the church and donated money to the efforts as well. One thing I can say for sure is that the members of St. Stephens have been very welcoming to me and have been supportive of me. Many of the members know my name and can identify parts of my life, like where I am from and where I am doing my internship. I am lucky I have made some connections with the members!
As I get closer to going home to Iowa for Christmas, I actually feel a ting of sadness that I will not be around St. Stephens for Christmas. I am enjoying singing Advent songs and being around the choir but I am definitely excited to spend time with my family because it was been almost 4 months since I have seen them- which is the longest time that I have ever been away from them. I have already told my mother that when I get off the plane, I will cry when I see her. I have been in Pennsylvania for awhile now and I am starting to see the beauty of it more. When riding into work, I see the mountains from the distance and I am growing a much larger appreciation for them. In Iowa, it is very flat and you can see farm land for miles, but it Pennsylvania, the farm land stops because of the mountains. At first, I didn't like that but now I am seeing the fog off the mountains and the different way the mountain peaks are different from the rest, they almost roll from one to another. I am not completely prepared to go back to the Midwest cold. According to my friends and family, it was been in the single digits and below zero. Today, in Harrisburg, I was wearing a sweater and completely comfortable. I will have to break out the parka when I get home! Staring tomorrow, I am in the single digits until I return home. I am getting rather exciting!
My mom sent me a package this week that totally made my week. In it contained Eloise at Christmastime. Which happens to be one of my favorite holiday movies in the world. I didn't own it and my mom had been bragging to me that she has watched it on TV at home. To my surprise I opened the package to find Eloise and some chocolate! I am such a lucky daughter!
This coming week will be busy preparing for the concert on Saturday and the planning of the community fair, but nothing will be too out of the ordinary!
Till next week,
Katie