Being the change

Note: Really long post ahead.

We knocked on the doors of over 200 houses on a lazy Friday morning of a National Holiday. Some were locked, some were not home and some were just not willing to listen. But the rest of the people opened up their hearts and their wallets to help a noble cause. We collected Rs. 9000 in total, an average of Rs. 60 per household counting only those who contributed. That is pretty decent if you look at the average. Two people gave us Rs. 500 and we couldn't be thankful enough. When you're getting 20s and 50s from other houses, even 100s from some, 500 is a huge amount! At the end of the day, we had achieved our target of Rs. 7500 and exceeded it by almost Rs. 1000. A job well done I suppose because it didn't look that easy when I started.

A lot of planning was done and me and Sridhar had the following things printed:

Fliers to give to every person (front and back).

Thank You cards for when these people contributed something (front and back).

I don't have the image of the Discount Coupon that a Reebok Store gave us to give to people who contributed an amount above Rs. 50 (decided by us). A big Thank You to them too.

Every person was armed with a bundle of all these things by the morning of the big day.

We had decided to cover five societies with 100 apartments or more in each. There were a total of 10 volunteers, namely - me, Sridhar, Kritika, Nandita, Garima, Prerana, Rohit, Nitish, Rajat & Juhi. All of them are my friends except Rajat, who works in Tech Mahindra with Garima & Prerana, and Juhi, who is Rohit's very good friend. I have never met them but want to thank Rajat for volunteering and helping out. As with all plans, something has to happen and so Juhi backed out at the last moment and we were left with one less person. Since we had split into 5 teams of a boy and girl each, you get no points for guessing whom Juhi was supposed to partner. The name of my blog is an apt description of my life.

Moving on, the bad news was delivered to me just moments before I was about to leave. Since there were no standbys, I went alone hoping that someone else would join me later. It started well, I got 100 bucks from the first house but I guess the fact that the person knew my friend who had told him I would be coming doesn't make it as sweet. The next house was a major dampner as the person questioned me for about 10 minutes and told me to do something for the nearby areas instead and a whole lot of other stuff. He did contribute in the end just when I was losing hope of getting something out of him. I had to take a breather after that. I was holding so many things in my hands and was doing a major juggling act when someone took money out of their pockets.

This is what it was like:
1. Ring the bell.
2. Wait for an answer.
3. Greet them with a Good Morning/Happy Independence Day and a big smile.
4. Hand them a flier and start the sales pitch. The language matters a lot and you have to measure the initial response of the person caefully to figure out if you can continue in English or switch to Hindi.
5. Answer the questions, if any.
6. If they say no, say thank you and walk away.
7. If they ask you to wait while they get the money, take out a Coupon and a Thank You card, and the form which they have to fill, wait, take the money, ask them to fill the form while you fumble with the money in your hand, take back the form and the pen which almost everyone forgets to give back, give them the stuff and thank them profusely, take a deep breath and sigh of relief.
8. Count the total you have collected so far even though you know how much it is. Counting cash feels so good!
9. Ring another bell.

Every other house brought either joy or disappointment. There was a spell of 3-4 houses on the trot that was so disappointing that I had to call for backup. Others were still busy, but by the time I reached the 40th apartment, the cavalry arrived in the form of Nandita and Rohit. It was smoother sailing from then on and we even managed to relax for 10 minutes and had something to eat. We finished with around 60 houses and a total of Rs. 1500. Pretty good, but not enough. We were too tired to go on and regrouped at Sri's place.

On Sunday, we went to the same people to collect clothes, toys and books and any other stuff that could be useful. We recieved an overwhelming response and are still busy with sorting and packing the clothes in big boxes which can then be mailed. We ran out of boxes!

Kunal, works in the office with me and Sri, has promised to help us out with boxes full of medical supplies. Hope it should come through.

Overall, it was a success. Hope we can continue doing the same in the future.

Points: 15000 points each to Kritika, Nandita, Garima, Prerana, Rajat, Nitish & Rohit. Thank you for helping out.

1000 points to everyone who contributed in any way they could.

One-liner: "The future lies in the hands of those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." - Elena Roosevelt