Things I Love About My Job: Open House/Spring Fling

Last week was the Open House for the high school I work at. A couple months back, I approached the principal about combining the Open House event with a a Spring Fling carnival fundraiser, similar to what our Student Government put on my senior year of high school.

Modeling it after this super fun memory, I approached every club on campus about doing a booth to sell food or play a game. When I was in school, our Drama Club put on a Twinkie eating contest booth and it was a hilarious, disgusting mess. Unlike my old school memory, we also involved teachers for booths where they could show parents things their students were learning or display artwork or have students perform.

Anyway, last Thursday, the fruits of all our labor came together and it seemed like a blast! I don't know for sure because I was too busy selling tickets to be able to walk around, but everyone looked happy. Sure, lots of families looked confused, since most parents don't understand that Open House is not a conference time. But once they got indoctrinated to the culture, everyone appeared to be having a good time.

After the fact, I got lots of emails from teachers telling me what a good job I did organizing this event and how much fun they had. They also had lots of ideas for next year, which really made me happy, because it means that it was at least successful enough for them to want to do it again next year!

Since this was the very first large-scale event that I organized for my school that actually panned out, it was very reassuring to me, as both a VISTA and an employee. I felt like I had held up my end of the bargain by raising money. I felt like I had done something worthwhile that other VISTAs could learn from and it was definitely something I could write about as a success story for our quarterly reports. Too often, it feels like the work we do is played down, and for once, I feel like I have something worthy of shouting from the rooftops about!  What a great feeling!!!