Hebrew Senior Life #5

            This week I concluded the Hebrew Senior Life project by sending off a wrap up email, and organize the proof of things I did and write up a reflection of everything that went on over the past few weeks.

            In parallel with this, I joined Christina’s Pom-Pom hat project. She was stressed about figuring out how to handle preorders, the late arrival date of her hats, distribution once they arrived, and advertisement. Her Trello board was clear and organized, so as soon as she shared it with me I was able to jump right in.

            We began with writing up a Google form for preorders. We thought through how the distribution of these would work, which helped a lot with crafting the questions necessary. We talked about meet up times and locations, as well as the expected name and contact information. Alua also helped us to create flyers to put up around the school, seeing as we didn’t have an actual image of what the hats would look like.

            When the hats came, Christina went on a hunt to distribute as many of the preorder hats as possible, and I took a few to sell on my own. We posted pictures on snapchat of Christina, Shriya, Alua, and myself all wearing the hats and saying how to contact us if they are interested. We got several responses from this, including one from somebody who doesn’t even go to Brookline High School!

            Despite reaching out to the senior in charge of Habfest and not being able to sell the hats there, the Pom-Pom hats have already made one hundred and fifty dollars and are in high demand, thanks to the long cold winter Boston has given us.

Hebrew Senior Life #4

This week in Hebrew Senior life, we dealt more with figuring out the next steps of our project. We were told to make an electronic residential book for the staff (for now), that consisted of every residents name in alphabetical order, a blank spot if they didn't have their picture taken, and their picture if they did. They also requested that this book be automatic, so it is easy to delete and insert new/old people if need be.
We proceded to inform them that not only did we not have the knowledge or technology to set this up, but we didn't even have a full list of every residents name, let alone in alphabetical order. They asked if we could have a conference call to discuss exactly what they wanted, but couldn't do it until April 3rd due to somebody being on vacation. We then informed them that this was in fact when our project was due, so it wouldn't work. We did, however, offer to create a manual stating what we did to take the pictures and how we did it, to hopefully make it easier for the two other Hebrew Senior Life locations to mimic it, but they did not seem interested in the concept.
Instead, they thanked us for the work we did with them and for helping to jump start this new system they are implementing. I am going to send them an email, reminding them that Communication for Entrepreneurship is a class that will be around next year, so it is possible there will be students interested in continuing our project in the fall if it would be helpful to them.

Hebrew Senior Life #3

This week in Hebrew Senior Life, Amelia and I finished our first run through of all the residential floors of the 1550 Beacon Street location! Even though we were done, Gale, Amelia and I decided to give the seniors one more chance to have their pictures done, if they missed for whatever reason.

On Monday we had a discussion about how it is half independent living, so everybody has the option to opt out if they want to. Since we were unsure of how many of these “missing” seniors are “missing” because of personal reasons vs. schedule conflictions or just that they aren’t aware that these are happening, we made a call to all of the apartments. This overall call reached every apartment telephone; informing each resident of where we were and what time we would be taking pictures until. This tactic proved successful, effective, and definitely helpful for us.

After the flow of “missing” seniors arrived to have their photos taken, we met with Gale one more time to discuss how to manage the transport of pictures, and to double check that the way we are organizing and cropping them works for her. We decided that a flash-drive, organized in alphabetical order by last name, dropped off with them early next week, would be the easiest.

The next step is obviously to create the residential book, file of life, and ID cards. We sent an email to Gale asking if she would like any assistance in any aspect of any of those three projects.

Overall, we made a lot of progress this week. Not just in taking the pictures, but in figuring out the next steps as well.

Hebrew Senior Life #2

This week, the biggest problem Amelia and I encountered, was dealing with simultaneous activities going on at Hebrew Senior Life. One of the two sessions we scheduled to take pictures last week, was competing with free food for the seniors. Obviously, we knew we were not the priority in this situation. 

Due to this issue, we had far fewer participants who showed up to have their pictures taken. Many also planned to come after getting the food, so we needed to stay the entire time despite not having much to do towards the middle of our time slot. This is just going to add to the make-up date issue that we are going to encounter/need to begin talking to Gale about (which we will on Monday). 

Other than this, things have been going rather smoothly. Amelia and I have come up with a solid system during our hours in HSL, as well as our hours spent in class. During our time at the senior center, I check people in, check their names off, and write their apartment number on a sheet of paper. I then send them off to the hallway where Amelia talks to them and has their photo taken. During class, (it usually takes about a block and a half) we go through the pictures, deleting all but the single best one of each person, edit the pictures, crop them to the correct size, and name them so that it will be easy for Hebrew Senior Life to organize them and put them to use as quickly as possible!

This week we plan to have done our first run through of all the residential floors, and come up with a schedule to begin makeup sessions. We are definitely on track for success in this project.

Hebrew Senior Life #1

This week was the first week we went in to Hebrew Senior Life to take pictures. Prior to this, we had gone only for Coffee Hours, to meet with the staff, and to get to know the residents. These meetings went smoothly, were informative, and very productive in preparing Amelia and I for what was to come.
When we began taking pictures, we started with only two floors. We wanted to see what we could handle. With Amelia on the camera, and myself organizing the residents and prepping them for how to take it, as well as explaining what the photos were for, we were able to finish fairly quickly. What we didn't expect was the large quantity that didn't show up.
On Wednesday, we upgraded to taking on three floors. We noticed even more people didn't show, and more people were refusing to get it taken. One rather outgoing senior decided to share her reasoning with us, which escalated rather quickly. Despite the somewhat offensive comments about our project and what we were doing with Hebrew Senior Life, Amelia and I had to keep our cool, constantly throwing out phrases like "I'm sorry you feel that way" or "We are only here to try and help" or "You aren't being forced to get anything done." Coming into this project, we knew we would get a range of personalities; perhaps some chatty, some quiet, some that don't speak english, some that can't hear. We even knew some wouldn't want their pictures done. We didn't expect to be lectured or compared to the Nazi's and Hitler, but now we know.
Amelia and I try our best to be as gentle, nonjudgemental, and nice as possible to all of the seniors and look past their comments, even the offensive and aggressive ones. We look forward to seeing what kinds of situations will be thrown at us for the next few weeks!

Overview #5

This week, a lot of the work we were doing in class had to do with preparing for our presentations next week! It was just Monday that we found out that we needed a first draft of our presentations for Tuesday, so we began furiously working.

We learned a few things after our first round. We needed to make clear what the theme was. Some people in our group touched the fact that 4A Coffee is a family business, and some touched that it would be student friendly. The connections were not smooth or clear, and there was much repetition within the presentation. 

We got some good advice from the teachers, learning what we should be emphasizing and making a point to mention. We now know what topics to avoid (made the mistake of mention a Jewish area that was not very inclusive of their new shop and heavy talk about specific numbers).

We also went down to the original 4A Coffee so we could all get the feel of what we are working on. We watched them make the drinks, and saw the in shop brewer! The customers looked very happy and loyal, some stuck around to drink their drinks there despite the fact that they don’t provide formal seating.

We used this insight to think about adding even more seating to our store. We hope to continue using the family feel, bright colors, and inviting atmosphere to have our new 4A Coffee be just as, if not more, successful as the existing one. We are working on our presentation and incorporating these personal pictures to make our store even more convincing to the panelists.

We decided to have two people work together on writing the scripts, to ensure that there isn’t repetition and the theme of the presentation is kept in line.

Overview #4

This week, my group and I reevaluated the way we have been going about selling stickers in our 200 Dollar project. Besides one exception right before break, we hadn’t done much mass selling. We made most of our profits off of walking around the library or asking our friends or teachers. After browsing the PTO website, I came across an event for junior parents to attend, and figured that would be perfect! Committed parents of active Brookline High students!

The biggest thing I learned from this (besides knowing who to sell to) was marketing. When I arrived, all three of my group members were sitting at the table, watching people pass and the event room fill up. They hadn’t sold any. I was in a good mood when I came, so I immediately started chatting with Ms. Holman. I explained what the project was for, and our different forms of advertising such as Instagram and Portraits of BHS. She was impressed with the work we had done, and bought three stickers off the bat.

More parents walked by, if the table caught their eye, I invited them over and gave a short and to the point overview of what they were and what they were for. Those who were interested in the cause or the sticker bought one, and those who weren’t hadn’t wasted much time so it wasn’t awkward for them to walk away. By the time the event started, we sold fifteen stickers! Almost as many as we sold during lunch to students, but in a third of the time.

I think this experience shows that if you are interested and invested in what you are doing, it will rub off onto other people. It also shows that doing our research on events happening close by, and the types of people who will be attending is extremely important to creating success.