After a very successful SAISA Boys Volleyball tournament hosted at OSC. Gecko Gear headed into the next term prepared to welcome the SAISA Girls Football teams to OSC once again to host SAISA Girls Football 2024. Our first goal was related to building relationships with the kids on campus as Adam, Sandeep and I were involved with swimming with kids in SOS Village. However, this would have to take a break as the Christmas break was quickly approaching. Right before the break, I headed out to see multiple suppliers to see if we could get a more locally produced and sustainable production process. Yet, time was tight so if I had found success in finding a supplier it would have to wait until the last season.
Our next goal was to design merchandise for the SAISA athletes who would travel during SAISA season 2 and the Girls’ Football Teams traveling to OSC. Before this, however, our service needed to come to school on Saturday, January 20th, for Hope for Kids’ charity Cricket game to sell merchandise. As Zoe and I arrived to set up the stall we were welcomed with a good deal of business, selling our new hoodie, GO GECKO’S T-shirts, and our wristbands. We also brainstormed ideas for SAISA and the future like having removable tattoos and tote bags.
After making quite a few sales at the cricket game from 1:30 to 6:00 pm, we packed up and prepared ourselves for SAISA football which was in a few weeks. This term since Christmas was a bit hectic as we had missed around 3 weekly meetings due to holidays, SAISA, and WWW. The team had all finalized designs and here were the designs Adam and I worked on for SAISA season 2. Another goal we had for this season was to redesign the Gecko Basketball kits which came out as a learning experience as they were different from what we sent the supplier. Right before SAISA, Mr. Poulus (Service Coordinator) started to organize service meetings every month for the ‘kids on campus’ service groups where we were congratulated on our money made and we developed ideas to be more sustainable. Zoe, Ms. Sue, & I were at the meeting as the main leaders of the service and we agreed to take responsibility of paying for the transportation of all the other service groups as that was an expense that was unaccounted for.
After all the designs were set, Zoe, Hadiya, and Irina took the duty of selling merchandise to the SAISA girl’s teams. As SAISA finished and we totaled our revenue we had made Rs. 327,550 ($1,053). After the successful selling from the girls at SAISA, we were then congratulated once again at our next service meeting for making approximately as much money as the service budget given by the school to all the services as our combined revenue was around $2,000. We also started our next goal of designing merch for SAISA season 3 and one problem we realized was that the kids who come to swim with SOS Village needed goggles and their service could not afford to supply them. Therefore, we decided to go above what was expected and we made care packages for the kids who came on campus with SOS Village. It consisted of a pair of goggles, a towel, an OSC drawstring bag, and a gecko gear bracelet. This is when we also welcomed 3 new 6th grade members into our service as well for the next generation and growing our size.