Comments | wigglett: anything for a pen

wigglett

anything for a pen

Feb 04, 2007 22:01

Prior knowlede needed before reading: i recently took a job working at a shelter for women and children dealing with domestic violence. we provide emergency shelter along with after care programs for after the families leave the shelter.

i worked a home show this weekend for my job. we had an informational booth set up with educational materials ( Read more... )

Comments 4

datashade February 5 2007, 04:52:52 UTC

Yeah, I used to work fundraiser stuff with my parents, so I know how many people will come by for whatever 'swag' you have and not even pay attention to what you're actually doing there.

Which just leads me to ask, what WERE you doing there? Doesn't seem to me like a home show is a great place for a domestic abuse awareness booth. I mean, I'm sure there's easily some kind of connection I just don't see, but, then again, the people there looking for the perfect bedroom set or what the 14 different shades of tile they were comparing at Home Depot actually look like on a wall or whatever probably weren't expecting a fistful of brochures about why not to beat their spouse and/or children, either. So that might be part of why they didn't really want to make eye contact or didn't really want to engage you on the topic at hand.

Or they could just be pen-grubbing whitetrash assholes. Depending on the part of Florida you're in, the first possibility gives them way too much credit.

wigglett February 5 2007, 20:27:20 UTC

ha! yeah i agree it wasnt really the most appropriate place for a booth. however, it was more of a home/community show. our particular hallway was crammed full of booths with community organizations. i think it was aimed at new residents here to help them become aware of what services are in their community. i think the ultimate goal was to find potential donations more so than to promote the shelter. if that makes any sense.

datashade February 5 2007, 22:06:50 UTC

If your booth was down a row of community organizations then that makes sense.

I mean, like maybe people just walked down the aisle grabbing pamphlets and mousepads or whatever, saw the pens and were happy about those, and then saw what it was for and got nervous/embarrassed. At least you didn't get any 14-year-old hoodlums making bad jokes or tubby rednecks trying to hit on you .

iamdamanda February 5 2007, 19:44:16 UTC

Before I worked at the club, I did outreach for the Cancer Society and spent many, many hours tabling at various functions. Many were health fairs and were totally appropriate, but then sometimes there were very random places, like the Auto Show. We had some pretty cool swag so generally most people just took the stuff and moved on. And that's fine. It still gets the phone number out there so that if someone really does need the service at some point, there's the number ( ... )