20 Time Project - 5K for a Dream

Our project is finally coming to an end! Last Sunday (May 8) we held our first (and unfortunately, the last) fundraising event 5K for a Dream at Benjakiti Park, and over 40 people came, including adults, kids, and even babies in baby strollers! Everyone was so positive and exuberant! We had people biking, skating, running, walking, and even riding the boats in the lake! The Berkeley community basically took over the park! And we're so delighted that everyone enjoyed our hospitality, and especially free drinks (water and Gatorade). At the end of the day, we gathered everyone to express our thanks and appreciation. Before everyone left, we gave out notebooks, designed and drawn on by me, to the first runners to complete 5 km, and a few more to Ms. Kelly, Mr. Wayne, Ms. Mel (representing Student Council), and Ms. Lisa for helping us organize this event in some way, to Ms. Vicky because it was her birthday, and to a parent who finished ran over 5 km!

Lastly, we’re so glad to say that it was a massive success! Sami and I would like to thank over 40 people who attended and made it possible for us to raise over 35,000 baht! It was so unexpected: we actually thought that we weren’t going to raise enough money for one scholarship, and now we’re less than 5000 baht away from providing 4 scholarships to 4 different families (8,000-10,000 baht each). What stood out the most for us is the amount of joy we saw on the faces of those who attended the run and the joy we would see when the disadvantaged families receive the scholarships. One thing we’ve learned from this experience is that procrastination is our strong suit, which is not something anyone should be proud of, but because of this, we've also discovered how well we cope with pressure and time constraints. However, if given a second chance, we'd definitely try to avoid procrastination and communicate more and manage our times more effectively so that we could lay and fix our plans in advance and wouldn’t have to scramble at the last minute. Now, the only left to be worried about is our Ted Talk. We’ve decided to approach this in a relaxing, entertaining, and unique way, as our English teacher has suggested: “the last thing you want to do is bore the audience,” she said. As of now, we’re still unsure what we’re going to say, exactly. But we hope to have our Ted Talk speech figured out as soon as possible so that we’d have plenty of time to practice. (This is crucial because the SAT test is going to be only a few days after our Ted Talk!) Despite tremendous pressure, we will try our hardest to give the best speech we could! So stay tuned!