Over the past semester, my service – Room To Read- has been determined to accomplish our goal of helping to facilitate local school libraries with resources in order to create a supplied reading environment. Over the past semester, we have focused on the organization of an online literary event in order to help raise funds for our partner school. Earlier this year, we received a letter of request (accessible here) from our partner school, the Vidyaloka Vidyalaya school, which stated the school was going to construct a new library space and needed financial help to do so. Due to this, we orientated our literary event on being a fundraiser for the Vidyaloka Vidyalaya new library construction. To organize this event as service leaders, Liam and I had to form a plan to set this event in motion.

Planning

To start our journey to creating an online literary fundraiser, we had to reach out to find a guest speaker. Luckily, our service supervisor and school librarian Mrs. Raina Lockwood had contact with Mr. Andrew Fidel Fernando, author of “Upon a Sleepless Isle.” As a group, we formulated and sent out an email to Mr. Fernando, asing if he would be interested in being our guest speaker. After Mr. Fernando agreed to do so, we had to iron out the details of the event. We started by looking into the timings and the schedule for the event, as well as how we would advertise our event and gain funds online. We started off by focusing on how we would gain funds through the event. We decided on sending out a pledge document where OSC members could fill in their pledge amount and email, enabling us to reach out to them individually later on. We created separate pledge documents for teachers, students, and parents, to maintain privacy and categorize the funds. As a service leader, I sent out individual emails to all of the secondary teachers requesting donations for our cause, including the necessary links and information, as this personalized touch would help increase our total funds.

We received many pledges using this technique, as well as positive responses, which all played a key role of raising approximately 100,000 LKR before the event from teachers alone.

From there, we started looking into dates for this event, as well as its itinerary. After many emails, we were able to receive permission from the head of the secondary to hold our event during school hours. We were striving to hold the event from 1:40 to 2:30 pm, which would be time allocated to advisory for the secondary school. Thankfully, we received permission to do so on the same week as book week, allowing us to reach a much larger audience than we had initially anticipated. In order to spread the word, group members created a poster whilst others worked on emails, allowing us to cover our bases in a shorter amount of time. The poster was then sent to the daily bulletin board for the entire OSC community to see. Our Zoom link was also available on each student’s Managebac for the specific date and time, so all students and teachers had easy access to the event.

Literary afternoon poster creation process (on canva)

In order to get the most out of this fundraiser, we reached out to a variety of different sponsors via email and were able to receive a pledge from the company “MILK” for a donation of books. Finally, one of the last major components of our event preparations was to create the itinerary. We cut the 50 minutes of the event into chunks, which looked like the following:

Date 24/ February/ 2021

DURING ADVISORY SESSION

And sent this table via email to Mr. Fidel Fernando, thus allowing him to prepare accordingly. Alongside the planning of the itinerary, we had to adjust our service PowerPoint in order to introduce the event, to guarantee our introduction would be sharp and well-rehearsed. During our service sessions, we edited the slideshow to include all the necessary details, such as the background of our group, what had done in the past, what our future plans will be, and why we were requesting pledges. Alongside this, we met with Mrs. Kuruppu, the secondary school design teacher at OSC, to help us set up all the necessary technological features to permit our event run smoothly and professionally.

Putting It Into Action

Due to our planning, we were able to put the event into action successfully. We had over 160 students and teachers joining the online literary afternoon, which enabled us to reach out to a greater audience for possible donations.

We managed to stay within the time limit allocated to us whilst still being able to engage the audience with a Q and A. Our service group received positive comments for the event from many attendees who enjoyed the call, as well as more pledges for our cause. After the event, we were able to send out a student pledge link and kept in contact with the head of school who willingly sent out an email asking board members to make a pledge.

Reflection

Overall, I am delighted with the promising progress the Room To Read service has made, as well as my involvement in the group as a leader. Whilst it is frustrating that we can not directly work alongside the school for the time being, I am satisfied with the work we have been able to accomplish these last two quarters. Throughout the process, I found the most important skill I have gained is the ability to stimulate collaboration and engagement during online service sessions. This relates to the service outcomes, as I have demonstrated overcoming the challenge of engaging a group online, through the ability to organize an event as a group from a distance. Additionally, this connects to the outcome of collaboration, as I alongside all members of our service, cooperated during the planning of this literary event to create a successful final product. We used the breakout feature more frequently, allowing us to create tasks we could split between the few of us, enabling all members to cooperate in smaller and more manageable groups in which they felt more open to working in. We were able to manage our “To Do” list easily by dividing up the work into groups, so as to not overwhelm individuals whilst ensuring collaboration. By working collaboratively, the event was able to become a great success which inevitably taught me the importance of collaboration.

This journey has also illustrated my commitment and perseverance to the Room To Read service, as I dedicated time outside of our service sessions to ensure the event would reach its fullest potential. I was able to understand how our service could have a stronger impact on our community, and exactly what we were capable of. The next step forward will be to collect pledge donations and make a larger impact by giving the Vidyaloka Vidyalaya school our total collected funds in order to help them with the finances of the construction of their new library.

The final RTR literary event poster

For more information about Room To Read, visit our website here.