Days 33-36: Wellington to Porirua

On Wednesday morning, we got started on our planning for the Wellington fundraiser.  We started out by going to the information center to get all the names and numbers and locations of anyone and everyone that might be able to help us with our fundraiser.  We were hoping to do a repeat of one of our better fundraisers, perhaps a car wash or a sausage sizzle.  They were easy and simple and we knew that they worked.  Unfortunately, in the big cities, there seems to be a lot more rules and a lot fewer people who are interested in helping out.  None of our prospective fundraisers seemed to be going anywhere, with a lot of people just telling us that they couldn't help us.

However, we did have a voucher from the lovely Fox Glacier, which we were going to raffle off, so we decided that here in Wellington would be a great place to do it, with plenty of people around and that they wouldn't mind buying raffle tickets.  So we got the permit from the council and set up to sell tickets in two locations, outside of Westpac bank, and outside of the Warehouse.  We thought we would do better if we were separate, to get to more people.  But we didn't have much luck separately, and besides being discouraged with the amount of people not buying raffle tickets, we were also bored, not being able to talk to each other.  So we scrapped that idea and Sheree came over to where I was at Westpac, and we tried it together.  We didn't have much luck together either, but at least we could hang out together!  Unfortunately, we had another mishap... Z had been amazing to donate to us a $50 petrol voucher which we added to the prize of the Fox Glacier tour, but in Windy Wellington, there were a couple of times that the wind blew everything off of the table, and at some point we realized that the petrol voucher was missing! We searched everywhere, and we still don't know if it was taken or if the wind blew it off the table... We had also the day before, decided to do the 40hour famine, in an effort to encourage the kids to do the famine, and also to hopefully get some sponsorships.  So, with our lack of raffle ticket sales, the petrol voucher disappearing, a random lady yelling at me for "working" (which I didn't and still don't understand), and being cold and hungry on top of all that, we were not having a very good day!  We decided to postpone the famine, and do it again when there was someone who would sponsor us, because all it was doing at that point was putting us in a worse mood than we already were.  So we went and ate Indian food!  Yay!  Food had never tasted so good!

Gabrielle and her amazing Cheesecake!

Later that night we went back home (oh by the way, home had moved to Porirua, where Sheree's cousin was living, in order to have some family time!) and we had a lovely meal, and decided to sell a few more raffle tickets around the neighborhood.  We did a little bit better, although not much, and brought our tickets sales about up to $100.  When we went back home, Gabrielle (Sheree's cousin) made everything better with her amazing dessert!  It doesn't matter how bad your day is, when it ends with a nice piece of strawberry cheesecake, nothing can be bad!

On Friday, we went to the World Vision Wellington office, to help them out with a few things.  This was great for us, because we got a chance to learn a bit more about World Vision, to meet some more of the staff, and to see how they run things and just to get more involved with them.  We just made a few calls to the schools around the area, inviting them to participate in the 40hour famine, and in the meantime, got a chance to talk about ideas and fundraisers, to share and hear stories, and just basically to get excited about what World Vision is doing around the world!  It was a huge turn around from the day before.

The Girls making Bracelets

Making a WV Banner!

And then on Saturday, it was an even better day!  We went to civic square, where the Wellington Girls College (that means high school for you Canadians) was doing a 40-hour sweat shop, instead of a famine.  They were making bracelets, selling sausages and baked sweets, and singing and dancing in the streets!  It was amazing to see the level of enthusiasm of these girls!  Not only had a lot of them been awake all night working, but they were totally excited and full of energy.  But what really impressed Sheree and I, was the way that these girls were working together, and how there really didn't seem to be a dividing line between the different social groups within the school.  Each girl seemed to interact with each other girl, and there seemed to be no segregation between the different social groups!  I'm not sure what it was, but I really think it was the very fact that they were commonly working towards a goal, which was to help out a cause that it outside of themselves!  The singing, the dancing, the joy... it was all so encouraging!