First day drive was just as we expected. Marshall and I expect it to be a learning experience with moderate success. We ended up with 24 registered donors that we collected all the information including saliva kits on. The number is inflated by my friends who planned on doing it there ahead of time. Spreading words at the festival real time is as difficult as we expected.
We have a few thoughts.
(1) We will figure out how much it would cost to be outside and how the cost can be covered. Being inside in health screening area is not optimal in terms of the lack of age 18-44 people passing by our small table, and limited freebies options we can accommodate.
(2) In terms of gathering the crowd, balloons with message works really well for one of the sponsor outside. So many people advertise for you all over the park and possibly! Games for gifts somehow have people line up very quickly -- even though the gifts are of nominal values.
(3) Asians really shy away from donate, even when they are obviously second generation Asians. We can possibly run a drive with the theme of "bring an Asian friend" to use their "westerner" peers to help change the mindset.
(4) Asian Festival has a very diverse visitor population. Asians of age 18-44 constitutes a very small percentage.
Overall it's a great starting point -- getting the awareness out. Even if we get many "no thank you" today, we are for sure spreading the word. Many of them obviously never heard of bone marrow registry before! I walked around the festival and met many presenters from different Asian countries. Many of them allowed me to send the electronic version of our drive to their email address. I counted 20 email addresses -- and they said they would spread the word in their own cultural groups.
More to come...
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Busy with the drive!
I'm working with a BeTheMatch professional to host a bone marrow registry drive Memorial Weekend at Asian Festival. We will provide information, answer questions, and process bone marrow donor registry.
Date: Sat. & Sun., May 24-25
Date: Sat. & Sun., May 24-25
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Location:Franklin Park Conservatory
Asian Festival-Adventure Center
1777 E Broad St, Columbus, OH
Contact Info:
You can sign up online if you are unable to attend:
http://Join.marrow.org/asianfestival2014
"Like" us on Facebook where I will post updates:https://www.facebook.com/AsianBoneMarrow
If you want to sign up to be a volunteer:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4DABAE2CA2FF2-524525?uToken=25EECAFAFB06FE075EC3DFCE02E8
Feel free to forward or post on your social media. Every little bit helps. Thank you for your lifesaving kindness!
Asian Festival-Adventure Center
1777 E Broad St, Columbus, OH
Contact Info:
You can sign up online if you are unable to attend:
http://Join.marrow.org/asianfestival2014
"Like" us on Facebook where I will post updates:https://www.facebook.com/AsianBoneMarrow
If you want to sign up to be a volunteer:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4DABAE2CA2FF2-524525?uToken=25EECAFAFB06FE075EC3DFCE02E8
Feel free to forward or post on your social media. Every little bit helps. Thank you for your lifesaving kindness!
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