Children’s Charity Car Wash

So for the last month our office has been partially working on an event called Children Charity Car Wash. The benefits are used to buy food for the AMICAALL Social centers. This event is which is a joint venture between SNYC (Swaziland National Youth Council) & FLAS (Family, something, something, service, I can’t remember).

It accomplishes several goals, keep youth busy, AIDS awareness (although this turned out to just be a sign up and condoms around) and a fundraiser.

(the Social centers help take care of sick people, but mostly they run pre-schools and the most important is make food for the kids plus if there is left over (which generally there isn’t) it goes to the community.)

It was an event created to help keep the youth busy for a day, which is actually a big problem here, the youth (15-25) don’t have much going on nor are their days filled with activities. So a car wash is actually a fun thing for them to do and they tied it into FLAS by inviting families to come help.

It was scheduled for last weekend but seeing that the actual people in charge of the event didn’t do so well organizing it. It was pushed to this weekend. And the AMICAALL office stepped in after it failed, plus contributed funds for purchase of the car wash supplies, plus food.

Now for this first month here I have been working with the office. I haven’t activity been involved in creating, organizing or leading a project. But since this became our responsibility I got to do what I do best. Solve problems and solve them fast and with a time crunch.

I personally created flyers to put up, (which I am quite proud of simple and impressive at the sametime). I created two versions one cutsy and the other perfect for copying and the key clever aspect easily to make into a flyer (ie print 4 to a page, cut them up and you got fliers). Helped with organization and finally on Fri when we went to pick up the supplies (ie buckets, soap, cleaning clothes) You know the important stuff to actually clean a car. The store would not accept the purchase order that AMICAALL uses to pay for things (the check comes later, they rarely use cash). Now I have handled probably literally a thousand purchase orders in my life through the different movies I have worked on. And to my surprise it works the same here as it does back in the US, set up an account, do paperwork, and business flows.. So after jumping through many hoops, and thank God they all speak English, problem solved at around 5pm Fri.

Sat morning the supplies go out the door, with a few hick ups but out the door and to the car wash spot.

Where I found a large groups of kids ready to wash cars. Probably 30 who stayed all day washed 22 cars on a very cloudy with no sun at all day. It was great fun and I got to know quite few new people, although is typical I can not pronounce and generally can’t remember their names, in the US I am excellent at remembering names.

One strange feeling I had is that I actually had zero desire to actually wash cars, so I didn’t. I “supervised”, went on a mid day flyer distribution run and just enjoyed hanging out. Of course, I was a major part of set up and take down. A couple of PCV’s came to visit the Car Wash, and were impressed at the turn out both car wise and kid wise to clean them. I realized that my busy schedule which really hardly feels busy to me at all is way beyond what any but a couple of others are doing.

In fact, the car wash was considered such a success that they are doing it again tomorrow.

It was nice to be activity involved in organizing and I truly realized that my 10 years as a movie organizer has totally prepared me for any kind of organization challenge anywhere in the world. Today, was a really great feeling type of day. I have had many, many of those here but the Children’s Charity Car Wash was a big one.

Hopefully, it proves to my bosses that I really can handle running events. Cause I plan getting quite a few of my own up and going through the office. The great thing about my job is that I don’t have do anything with the Peace Corp, AMICAALL has its own funds. Other PCV’s have to rely on PC for funds for projects. I just plan to mix and match where necessary.

Another blessed day has happened in my life.