816 Math 2010: Allison Manuel's Pay It Forward .

Part 1 :
Pay it forward, is doing something nice for 3 people. Those 3 people you have helped/ done something nice for will help another 3 people. It will branch out and the numbers of people you have helped gets bigger and bigger.

Part 2 :
For my Pay It Forward project, my group (Melanie Ilagan, Jocelle Garcia, Kristel Aguason and I), we decided to raise money for Siloam Mission, which is a charity for homeless people. Everyday at school we asked if people would like to donate money. As a little gift, we chose to give them a candy cane, as a little treat since Christmas is near . We chose this activity because as Christmas is coming, we wanted to give money for people who aren't as fortune as we are, to celebrate this holiday, have a place to sleep and have food. My group and I did our project, from Monday December 13, 2010 until Saturday December 18, 2010. Before we would leave to go home, we would record how much we earned that day.
On December 18, 2010, we went to Superstore and decided to fund raise money there. We stood near the entrance/ exit doors for where people were coming into and out of the store . We did really well, for only 1 and a half - 2 hours of work . A man that works at Superstore, had told us to do some singing, to get peoples attention, so once in a while, we would sing some carols .
Part 3:
From Monday, December 13 until Saturday, December 18, my group (Melanie Ilagan, Jocelle Garcia, Kristel Aguason and I) raised money each day at school. We told the staff and students it was an act of kindess to paying it forward. As a treat in return, we gave them candy canes. At the end of the day, we would count how much money we earned, and we'd record how much we got. That went on all school week. On December 15 (Wednesday) my group and I gathered at my house to call Superstore to ask for permission to fun money there. We originally planned to do it at Polo Park, but we weren't allowed because we could have gotten our money stolen. On December 18 (Saturday) we met up at my house around 11:30 am and finished some centers and coloured our poster. At 12:30 we left the house and my daddy dropped us off at Superstore on Sargent. We then informed the office we were here. We stood near the entrance and asked the people who were coming in/ leaving if they'd like to donate. Our words were, " Hi, would you like to donate to SIloam Mission? ". Sometime when we would tell them to "Pay it forward". After they'd ask what all this would do in the end. We explained how it was a project of showing an act of kindness, so we decided to raise money for charity. After the first half and hour we collected around $40.00 with the help of the people who decided to donate bills. Speaking of bills, there's one man we'd really like to acknowledge. This person just passed by us, when there was a big crowd. He dropped in a $20 bill. We thanked him, and the smile on our faces became bigger because we started off with doubts, not reaching our goal. But at the end when we counted our total, we were super happy. Anyways, after a while, we weren't doing as well as we started. People just walked by. Most people already donated, worked with the charity or donate to them already. People passed by and told us that we were doing an amazing job. This one man told us to keep it up. That meant a lo to us ! A man that worked at Superstore that was , you can say supervising us told us to sing Christmas carols. So we quietly sang, " All I want For Christmas Is You " and " Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" . We would've sang other songs but we didn't know the lyrics to bunch of songs. People came again and donated more and more money. As the coins dropped in one by one *cling cling* the smiles on our faces grew bigger, knowing that all the money we collected was going towards people who needed it more than we did. Once again, we started getting less and less people donating. The man told us it would be better if we emphasized Siloam Mission. We had an extra poster with us so we wrote, " All profits will go towards Siloam Mission". That caught the customers attention. After working for an hour and a half we counted our money and got a total of $183.00. We were super happy. We wanted to see if we were able to raise money at Wal Mart, since it was so close. We walked there and went on an adventure to "Antarctica" since it was winter/ snowy/ cold. On our way there, I saw a homeless man on the other side. I didn't know weather to feel happy or sad. I had a mixed emotion because I felt sad knowing he won't be spending Christmas with his family. But at the same time I felt happy because we had just raised money and will be donating it toward people less fortunate. Well, after my experience, I had really felt how one person can really make a difference. In this case 4 people. I don't think most people realize that the smallest things can change a whole lot .

Part 4:
The idea of Pay It Forward is important because it helps realize that one person can make a difference to a whole bunch of people.
I believe that my project did make a difference to homeless people, because once we donated that money, it has helped a couple people to have a meal and have a proper place to sleep for a couple nights.

* My group and I have not donated the money to Siloam Mission, but we Will soon :)
Photos during our fundraiser =)

We gave the donors chocolate, as a treat .

Jocelle Garcia, Melanie Ilagan, and I =)

Kids came with their parents just to donate money.

Kristel Aguason holding our sign, which said, " Make A Difference. Pay it forward. We are doing this because we are learning how one person can make a difference. All proceeds will go to charity "