THIRST PROJECT CLUB PROGRAM
Fundraising Events You heard about the water crisis, and you have a campus full of people who you know can activate. What do we do? What events do we plan? Below are some categories that will hopefully help you out. SPORTS Let’s be honest, are you good at sports? Good news, regardless of your answer, sports tournaments are a great way to engage your student body with the water crisis. Think about the different twists you can put on a sports tournament and make it happen! Categories: Teachers vs. Students, Juniors vs. Seniors, Basketball Players vs. Soccer Players in a Softball game, Parents vs. Players, Girls Team vs. Guys Team, 3 on 3 Basketball, 7 on 7 football, there are SO many variations of a sports game, think about what works. Sports: Basketball, Football, Powder Puff, Baseball, Soccer, Volleyball, Tennis, Cornhole, Ping Pong, Frisbee, Water Polo, Badminton, Dodgeball, Video Games, and SO MANY MORE.
FOOD The way to most of our hearts, if we were being honest, looks a lot like a large pizza and unlimited sour-patch kids. We LOVE food. So why not use it to our advantage. Here are some great ways to use FOOD to help give WATER. Bake Sale: Cook your favorite treat and let it sell like hotcakes. No pun intended.
ART, MUSIC + DRAMA So you are the future Van Gogh? Moves like Jagger? Voice of an Angel? Let’s put those talents to good use. Here are some ways you can wow us with your creative skills. Student Showcase: Get a group of UBER talented friends who just so happen to play music. Have 5-10 acts do their thing whether it’s singing, dancing, rapping, playing an instrument, and sell tickets for admission. Everyone wins. Lip-Sync Battle: Lip-Sync got so popular it turned into a T.V. Show. Now have a battle at your school. Teachers vs. Students? Students vs. Students? You be the judge, and charge for admission. Poetry Slam: Spoken word is POWERFUL, so have an English class write up some spoken word to perform and charge admission. Art Auction: Painting, Sculptures, Paper Mache, Drawings, whatever it is, create pieces of Art and auction them off for clean water! Benefit Concert: Find that TALENTED person, the one who has an incredible voice, will undoubtedly be famous one day, or that band who will make it big. Plan a benefit concert where they play and have the ticket sales go towards helping give people clean water.
Banquet Dinner: Who doesn’t like a fancy dinner? Get some nice food cooked or catered, charge admission for the dinner, and eat really well, knowing you’ve helped build a well.
Play or Skit: You know what’s dramatic? The fact that over 600 million people still lack access to safe, clean drinking water. Even worse? We know the solution to the problem, and we haven’t solved it. Plan a skit or play that talks about the water crisis and have people donate to help!
Food Item Sale: Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Bags of Popcorn, Boxes of Chocolate, Cookie Dough, and more. Here are some recommendations for food item sales that have worked GREAT!
Fashion Show: Walk your Walk for real. Have a fashion show at your school, grab some great designer clothes, and make magic happen. Charge admission to the fashion show, and go give clean water!
Restaurant Proceeds night: Chipotle is LIFEEEEE. Head to Chipotle and set up a restaurant proceeds night where 50% of every purchase will go towards your Thirst Initiative. Don’t just stop at Chipotle, most restaurants do a proceeds night if you set it up, giving typically between 10%-30% of proceeds. Chick-fil-A, Buffalo Wild Wings, Blaze Pizza, Applebee’s Pancake Breakfast, Buena Vida Coffee, all do proceeds nights .Go to your local restaurant and ask if you can set one up, and give yourself a great excuse to go out to eat, maybe even take someone out on a date.
Talent Show: We know you’re talented, and so are your friends. Get your group together and let’s see what you got! Host a talent show to showcase all of the amazing things you have been able to do. Movie Night: Get you a projector, a space to do so (outside on a sports field or inside in an auditorium, or at someone’s house) and have a movie night where people pay to come and watch a CLASSIC!
Concession Sales Proceeds: Concessions stands are EVERYWHERE Sporting events, Artistic events, Lunchroom, etc. Talk to your concession stand and see if you can get part of the proceeds on a specific night or through a specific season to help support Thirst Project. If not all the proceeds, what about just the water bottle proceeds? Get creative.
MERCHANDISE Look good feel good right? Well here, you can help people do both. Looking good by selling the hottest merchandise on the market, feeling good by letting people know, every purchase they make, it will help give people clean water.
Candygrams/ Holiday Treats: Make a treat around the holidays (Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc) and let people buy them so they can then be delivered to friends, secret admirers, teachers, etc.
T-Shirt Sale: Design a T-Shirt that combines the Thirst Project logo and colors and your school’s logo and colors for a BOMB shirt that you can sell. Make sure to go and get sponsors for that shirt. Bracelet Sale: Design a sweet bracelet that you can use to sell with awesome messaging behind hit. Use phrases like “Give Water. Give Life” or “Water is a Human Right. Join the Fight.” Reusable Water Bottles: Fight the global water crisis by designing and selling reusable waters. Put a crazy logo on it to make it sweet.
THIRST PROJECT CLUB PROGRAM
Fundraising Events BIG EVENTS Here are the BIG Events that typically draw a ton of attention, raise the most money, or show the most impact. Go Big or Go Home. Right? Walk for Water: You know the typical 5k run that always happens in your community? We have a different idea. Plan a Walk for Water, where participants are challenged to carry gallons of water to experience what millions of women and children are forced to do every single day. Change Wars: You truly want to CHANGE the world. Host a penny drive, change war, or coin drive at your school. Imagine if everyone brought in a dollars worth of change at your school! Go change the world, because every cent counts. Dance-A-Thon: School dances are timeless. Prom season is one of the biggest times of the year for graduating seniors. We love to dance, so why not go for longer? Do a Dance-A-Thon at your school. Go all night, or just for a couple hours, and charge admission. Dancing for a purpose has never been so fun. Gala: Oh you fancy huh? Not yet. Plan a fundraising Gala for students at your school to get dressed up, have a fancy meal, enjoy some entertainment, and donate some money to help give clean water. Carnival/Festival: Festivals happen all the time, so why not do one for water? Capitalize on the fall season and have bobbing for apples, hayrides, pumpkin patches, etc. Do a winter festival with cookie decorating, pictures with Santa, and snowflake making. Have booths, free food, face painting, and maybe even an inflatable and you’re sure to have a good time. Recycling: Set up a recycling program at your school where every plastic bottle or can you collect is turned in for money that you can then donate to help give people clean water. Doing two good things at once: saving the environment and saving lives. BONUS: Challenge teachers to match whatever money you make from recycling every month Challenges: Take the challenge, or get teachers/ administrators/ student leaders to take the challenge themselves. Challenge teachers to dye their hair, get pied in the face, do a crazy dance in front of the student body if you reach a certain amount of donations. Shave your head, eat a cricket, drink a happy meal mixed up in a blender if you reach a certain amount of donations. Accept the challenge. DO SOMETHING CRAZY for the water crisis. Miracle Minute: How much impact could you have in 1 minute? At an assembly, a popular athletic event, somewhere where there is a TON of people, have a Miracle Minute countdown. Take 1 minute, and see how many donations you can get in 60 seconds. Ask people to donate whatever change or dollar bills they have on them. At the end, count up the money you raised and see how many lives you saved!
MISCELLANEOUS Here are the CRAZY event ideas. Unique, set apart, some you have heard of, some you definitely have not. Use these to your advantage! Best seat in the House: Get a sofa that you can use at athletic events. Make sure it is COMFY. Put that Sofa in the front row for athletic events (soccer games, basketball, football, etc). Get raffle tickets and raffle the seats off before each big game, and let a student and two friends sit on the couch. Take the raffle money and use it as a fundraiser. Car Slammer: Before you play your rival school, get an old junk car and spray paint it your rivals colors. Get a couple sledgehammers and charge $1-$5 to hit the old car with a sledgehammer.
Cow Pie Fundraiser: Get a cow and a empty plot of land, ideally a grass parking lot next to a soccer field or football field. Rope off a big area and get a grid full of squares that are roughly the same size. Number each square and auction off those squares. People will be betting on which plot or square the cow will lay its first cowpie (poop). Let’s say you get $1000 in donations, half of the money will go to the winner and half will go to Thirst Project! Drops of Water Fundraiser: Similar to fast food restaurants when they sell cutout pieces of paper for charity, we are selling Drops of Water! Print and cut out bright drops of water that people can “buy” for $1 as a donation and then have them sign their drop of water. Hang them in a public place in your school so people can see and generosity can spread. Lazy Boy Day: Get a Lazy boy and auction off tickets for 1 lucky student to sit in a lazy boy for a day in all of their classes. Light up the Sky LED Balloon/Lantern Festival: Similar to a Lantern Festival, order a massive amount of Balloons and LED Lights or beautiful Lanterns from online. Sell tickets that includes a balloon/ lantern and have a LED Balloon/Lantern release at a local park or at your school. Ford Test Drive: Ford, Honda, Toyota, etc. Most Car dealerships will allow you to set up a Test Drive event, where for every driver you get to come in and test drive a vehicle, they will donate $25-$50. Set up a test drive event and get your drivers to come test one out! Color War: We love color runs, why not a color war? Order packets of colored cornstarch online and have students sign up and sell tickets for admittance. Get an open field and have people splash each other with color, having a color war while incorporating games like capture the flag, etc. Duct Tape a Teacher to A Wall: Get your principal, a teacher you love, a teacher you might not love, and get them to agree to be taped to the wall Do it in a public place like the lunch room. Sell pieces of duct tape as a fundraiser! Garage Sale: Old School Garage sale meets new school items. Get rid of your old toys, clothes, and things you know you’re just hoarding! Get your friends to do the same! Car Wash: One of the oldest tricks in the book. An old fashion car wash. Put a twist on the car wash and do it in costumes! Or sing the driver a song after you’re done. Or wash and dry their car! Think of something fun. Parent Night Out (Team Babysitting): Get a team full of your friends who are willing to babysit for a night that we know parents will want to have to themselves (Valentine’s Day, etc). Take the money you raised from babysitting and donate it! Raffle/Silent Auction: Who doesn’t love a good raffle? Go to local businesses and get items that you can eventually raffle off. Electronics, sports equipment, memorabilia, coupons, trips, etc. Raffle the items off at an auction. Run of Ducktape: Take a LONG strip of ducktape and during halftime of big games, run it along the bleachers, have people come up and stick money to it for a quick fundraiser during the break! Give it up: Have a Birthday coming up? Give up your Birthday for clean water, asking for people to donate instead of getting gifts? Don’t want to give up your BDAY but you feel like you can give up something else you spend money on? Give up your favorite coffee drink for a month, give up eating out, give up going to the movies, and take the money you would have spent on those things and donate it to clean water projects.
WHY WATER?
WHO WE ARE Thirst Project is the world’s largest YOUTH water organization.
The average distance that someone in a developing community walks to fetch water is
We exist to educate students about the water crisis and mobilize them to fundraise for global water projects. We're the first organization committed to bringing clean water to an entire nation (Swaziland) by 2022.
a child dies of water-related disease
SERIOUSLY.
gives one person access to clean, safe water FOR LIFE
SWAZI2022 WE WANT TO GIVE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY OF SWAZILAND ACCESS TO CLEAN, SAFE WATER BY 2022!
THIRSTPROJECT.ORG | THE THIRST IS REAL FOR 663 MILLION PEOPLE
WHY? SIZE
POLITICS
HIV/AIDS
CASE STUDY
With 1.4M people, Swaziland is the smallest country in Africa, so our commitment is achievable within a few years.
Shunned by the global development community because of human rights abuses. While bad guys are being bad, real people are dying. We wanna be the good guys.
1 in 5 people are affected by HIV, so lack of access to clean water makes it nearly impossible to treat HIV infected peoples.
Great case study for development orgs to replicate a “complete solution” model.
COST
It’ll take $50million to provide every single person in Swaziland access to clean, safe water for life. It sounds like a lot, but the impact will be priceless.
DCON WORKSHOP APPLICATIONS If you want to lead your own workshop at the 2019 District Convention, click on Morty to fill out the application! Due: September 15th