I survived 1Utama!!

We've survived 1Utama! Woohoo.......

United Voice was given a booth at 1Utama to sell our products for the entire month of December & until 2nd January 2008. Imagine our excitement when we learn that 1U is partnering us. Part of the contract is that we must be open Mon-Sun, 10am-10pm. So each staff is in charge of 1 week. Basically we go there in the morning to open up the booth, wait for the volunteers to come, brief them, then go back to the office to do our stuff and then after work go back to 1Utama and jaga the stall and close up at 10pm. Imagine being at 1Utama 7 days in a row! Let's just say that I'm pretty much sick of the songs "Jingle Bells" & "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer". And I have a new found respect 4 those in the retail line. Very,very exhausting. By the end of my duty week I was just sitting behind the booth, too stoned, too tired to give out any brochures.

Was it worth it? Absolutely! We got a total of over RM14,000 from sales and donations. Not much considering that it's @ 1Utama but we are there first & foremost to create awareness for UV, second to sell our employment project products & third to raise funds for the UV building. There was 1 night where I was kind of fuming because sales was not very good and I was wondering what was wrong when someone came to the booth and started to ask me some questions. She was telling me that her young cousin has Dyslexia and the parents, not understanding her disability was treating her very badly, even calling her stupid (the parents ought to be shot!). She herself has dyslexia and her parents were not supportive of her initially but now she has a degree and working at Canada. We chatted a bit about the situation here in malaysia, the kind of support provided and she said that we are doing a very good job of promoting self-advocacy. Of course after that conversation I stop feeling mad because I was remained that it doesn't matter how much we are able to sell, it's letting people know and be more aware of persons with learning disabilities, about self-advocacy. That is what's important. That is why we are at 1Utama. It's funny how it takes a persons with learning disabilities to remain me of that.

Anyway feeling a bit sad while we were packing the booth on the last day. 1Utama was like my second home for the month of December. We had so many people coming to ask us for directions that I think by now I should know where 90% of the shops in the New Wing are located! hahaha I'm really, really thankful & grateful to all the parents of UV members, friends & volunteers who has come and help us jaga the stall. In fact I suspect some of them like Izzy who was very, very enthusiastic in helping to give out brochures might have ADHD! hehe Thanks to all the BLCians who came to help too. The PR people from the 1 Utama management are a fantastic bunch. They've been helping us a lot. BIG thank you to them.

Amidst the tiredness and the crazy repetitiveness of Christmas songs I think I really, really enjoyed myself there. It was certainly an exciting experience. If given the chance I dun mind doing it again end of this year.

Jo & Hui Ming slaving away setting up the stall. I was "supervising"! hahahaha

See.... I was hard at work too......

I conned Melanie to come & help jaga the stall. hehe She even made some earrings for us to sell to raise funds....

There was 1 night where my "volunteer" told me last minute that he couldn't make it so I had to asked Kelvin if he could come. He had to rearrange his dinner plans to come and help me for about 2 hours. Thanks a lot bro!

Some surprise visitors.........Michael & Daniel saw that I was alone (they were shoppping) so they teman me for a while. Daniel even bought me a drink from Juice Works! *GASP* I think he's interested in joining UV as a member!

I "volunteered" my Lifegroup to help out on one of our LG nights. hehe Thanks gals....

I call Susan the "Super sales mom". Her son, Brieve has Down Syndrome and he's working in UV under the Employment Project. We had the best sales day ever on the day she came to help. It helps that it was a public holiday. We made over RM700 in sales that day and over RM400 in donation.