Smiles of China #4

I’m continuing on with my GC this year since I found it pretty fun last year. Even though I’m stepping back from leadership position (last year I was financial officer), I think it is good to still be involved and enjoy seeing the lower grades flourish in a position of power. We are still trying to get our milk tea business started. I think it’s been tough really, it’s stretched out for forever and especially with my last year feeling incredibly short, I don’t think we have much time for anything anymore.

I think even though I didn’t get to go on project week to this GC, I still am holding hope that something is being done there. I don’t get to see any of the results directly which is sometimes frustrating but it is the reality of things.

Smiles of China #3

So within our GC, we are starting an initiative to sell milk tea. We haven’t really done much this year in terms of events and raising money. Perhaps we didn’t have as much opportunity of because of the financial restraints but we are in the midst of setting up a business for milk tea. We probably won’t have time to start selling this school year but we are trying to set up everything so that the business can begin right away in the beginning of next year.

Some challenges we are facing right now is the cost and the sustainability. Since our school is a strong supporter and enforcer of keeping our campus as sustainable as possible. The process of making milk tea is not exactly sustainable. All the ingredients of sugar, milk and tea come in packets but as long as all these have a disposal plan that is recyclable we will be okay. But we did have to spend some time finding ingredients that achieved these requirements. The cost however of finding better ingredients goes sky high. Therefore we had to find a compromise between better taste and high cost. Also when serving the milk tea, cups had to be reusable so no plastic anything. Luckily Zero Waste is a college service that provides reusable cups that they wash so that is pretty perfect.

We conducted a taste testing within our GC and the one I liked was the most expensive so that definitely was a “no” but we did find one that was pretty good. We’re going to conduct another taste testing on the plaza having the rest of the school try it and give us feedback. From this, we will improve our milk tea business and hopefully become pretty successful in the school.

Smiles of China GC #2

As finance officer, I’ve had to go to a few meetings which has been stressful especially since they don’t really tell I have to be somewhere until I get to the GC meeting and sometimes I’m a little late because I have to get lunch first. But when going to these meetings, I really feel like I’m contributing to the GC in a more beneficial way that sitting in the meeting and not really talking about anything.

So family festival has just been done and that is an important part of the GC this year because the school is taking a turn towards being more sustainable so all the stock from previous that have unsustainable materials should be sold in order to make room for more sustainable pieces of items. We had fans, t-shirts, pens, bookmarks etc. I thought it was pretty successful since we made quite a bit of money for our GC which is great but also because now more people have learned about our NGO and have supported it through buying good or just plainly donating. Maybe we didn’t make as much money as some of the other GC’s but we did sell a great deal of things. I think it was great experience especially since I’ve never done anything like that, being in the vendor position instead of the buyer.

Smiles of China GC #1

I joined Smiles of China because I am Chinese and I though it would be nice to give back to the mother country. The first meeting was a little nerve wrecking as I am new and I hadn’t met a lot of people but when I went in, there were some familiar faces which comforted me. We did some ice breaker games which led me to get to know some people but we started getting to know the GC, which NGO we supported and raised funds for. Also the responsibilities within the GC and what would be expected of us.

Our NGO is called New Hope Foundation and they take in abandoned infants especially those with special medical needs and care for them. They are located in and around China so the funds we raise all go to the nannies who take care of the baby’s salaries. We could sponsor a child and raise money for a specific child but that would be unfair as the other kids wouldn’t be getting any care. So sponsoring the nanny’s salaries seemed to be the fairest way to do things.

I’ve never done anything like this so I’m excited to see where this goes.