Good news and bad news

Here's the good news...

So today I met with Deborah McKenzie at the Palmetto Expo Center, and she gave me a tour of the facilities and we talked about the sizes and the prices, etc. They have an AMAZING selection of rooms that would be absolutely perfect for my event! I was so surprised! They just had a huge $22 million renovation, and there are so many nice new facilities. Plus, most rooms have something called a "prefunction area," which would be perfect for the food before the event.

Here's the not-so-good news...

The room that I would really like to reserve for February is going to cost $1300. That is quite a large amount of money. Mrs.Mckenzie was very helpful, though, and she did recommend some options:
1.) She knows the owner of a place downtown called the Saw Mill that has two huge rooms that I could possibly use. She said the owner, Kim Ellis, actually recommends that the occupants bring in outside food for events, which is excellent, because the Palmetto Expo Center will charge the restaurants for serving food for the event. (If the restaurants charge for their food, PE will charge them. But if not, the price of the room will go down considerably. The problem is--how could we get the restaurants to give away free food? we can't.)
2.) She also suggested looking into Greenville Tech. Apparently, they do have an auditorium and a considerable amount of space for such an event. This would be nice. I'm going to look into it.
3.) We spoke about getting sponsorship from a large corporation--who could pay for the room reservation. I mentioned that Stuart Spinx sponsors many things in Greenville, and she said the best way to ask him is to ask in person, so that's what I plan to do. I will write up a formal proposal for the event including cost and details and such, and I will present it to him. Deborah said that he most likely will say yes if I ask in person. She also mentioned General Electric, and I will look into that.

For now, I will write a formal proposal to give to Mr. Spinx and I will begin contacting restaurants and finding participants for the event. I have a meeting with Mrs. Mary Ellington of the Metropolitan Arts Council next Wed. afterschool. Hopefully she will be able to offer some more advice for my project.

Long time no...update?

haha, i guess you could say I hit a bump in the road....

So here's what's up:

I had a meeting with Patricia Harrison, director of the ICU, and she was actually really helpful. We talked about the event and how difficult it would be to find a place, schedule auditions, get people involved, etc. She said she likes my idea and was fully on board to help. At the end of our meeting, i decided that I was ready to find a place for my event. Here are some of the places I have in mind:
**Palmetto Expo Center
*Greenville County Library
*McAlister Auditorium
(Well, that's all the places I know so far--**indicates that i really want to do it there:-)

So I looked online at the Palmetto Expo Center website at their schedule of events and it looks like February (when I wanted to do it) is pretty booked in terms of weekends, but March isn't. Now, I know that EPL will be meeting up again in March, so I don't want to have it the w/e of the 17th, but the 10th or the 24th are looking pretty good to me...But, i'll have to jump on it now before someone else takes the day...

I guess what i really feel i'm stuck on is where to have it and when....if the Riley inst. knows any place big enough in Greenville, that would be helpful :-)

Also, Patricia told me to go ahead and contact the embassies to get stuff for the event, and i know that takes a long time, so i'll go ahead and do that. In the meantime, i think i should start advertising!!! I've been so busy with my extended essay (for IB) and college apps, that i've been slacking on my EPL project! Oh no! Things have calmed down, tho, so I should be fine.

I have emailed Mary Ellington, of the Metropolitan Arts Council, for help on this project, but I have yet to receive a reply.

MORE INFO TO COME!

I'm meeting with Mrs. Harrison next Thursday afterschool to discuss my project!

Yay!! Success!

Ok, so things are looking good for my project now...
I emailed the Greenville Chamber of Commerce to tell them my idea and to ask if anything similar to my idea already happens in Greenville. I got a reply from a man named Hank Hyatt who said that he really likes my idea and he only know of some kind of international parade that already happens in Greenville, but he's not sure of the date. He advised me to contact Patricia Harrison of the International Center of the Upstate. Mrs. Harrison and I have already had previous contact, so it will not be difficult to get in touch with her.
I know we're supposed to post some things by the 15th, so here goes:

I. Project Vision: To educate citizens of Greenville about the diversity of cultures found in our city.

II. Importance of the Project: This event will familiarize the people of Greenville about the different cultures found in their city and will introduce some of the art often practiced by these cultures. Not many people in Greenville are familiar with the variety of cultures in Greenville. In my school alone, 32 different languages are spoken and several different religions are practiced. When I did my interview with Mr. Bruce Bannister, a member of the House of Representatives, and asked him about the language barriers in Greenville, he could only tell me about accommodations for Spanish-only speakers. He was unaware of any of the different cultures and people who need language assistance in Greenville, like the Arabic and German communities. This is my inspiration for this project. If someone in his position is not familiar with the problem, I must do something about it.

Now that I know I might be able to actually do the event, I must start looking for a location and for international restaurants to donate food for the event. I will tell them that it will be a large event for Greenville and will bring good advertising for their restaurant. Maybe this will persuade them to donate. The Palmetto Expo Center is looking to be a wonderful location, as it is now owned by the City of Greenville and may be more accessible and available now!

Time to get started...

Alright...
My project is to have an International Festival for Greenville County, which will model the current international festival held at my school, Southside High School. We are an international school, so we have many different cultures modeled in our student body. My vision for this project is to celebrate the cultural diversity of Greenville, which is one thing that I think is not noticed as much. We have several different cultures in Greenville usually from our booming economy. (for example, Michelin and BMW brings many German and French people to Greenville)
What we do at Southside is we have the night divided into two parts. First, we ask all students to bring a dish of food to share from a certain country(they can usually choose) to waive the fee of admission. If not, admission is around $2. Then, we set aside about 1.5 hours for eating. The cafeteria is divided into for regions corresponding to different regions in the world where the food origionated. After the potluck dinner, guests then proceed to the auditorium to watch the cultural performances. Some of the performances include dances, poem recitation, musical performances, and skits. Every performance is from a different culture. Aside from the dinner and performances, Southside also has their students do projects on different cultures and they are put on display in the Commons Area. In all of the years Southside has done this event, it has brought a huge turnout and is enjoyed by many people in the community.

I have a big challenge ahead of me. I mentioned my project idea to some of the administrators at my school and they have said it is a good idea and they have even offered to have the county-wide event at my school, as we will be in a new building this coming year. I thought that I would try and make it even bigger by having it in a public place, like the Palmetto Expo Center or maybe even McAllister Auditorium(because of my awesome connections at Furman:-). In any cause, what I need to do now is first contact the Greenville Chamber of Commerce to find out if Greenville already has a similar event and also contact the International Center of the Upstate to find out if they would be willing to help. Then, I must start calling around to find a location for the event. It all depends on availability. I would like to have the festival sometime around November or December. Also, I must decide if I want it to be a two-day event or not.

Another thing I need to consider is if I should open up the program and have anyone in Greenville sign up to perform, but then I would need to hold auditions. (or at least that's what they do at my school) I know this whole thing sounds like waaaaay too much to handle, but I know that when I get back to school, I can find plenty of volunteers! Also, I have connections to the Pleasantburg Rotary Club, which is always willing to help contribute to Southside's events. In any case, I must not procrastinate if I want to pull this off by November.

One last thing that would be helpful...Nigel Robertson said that to bring the media into the project, I must come up with an interesting story for them to tie it to. For example, if I could find a family or a person who would be willing to tell their story about moving to America, getting their citizenship, and everything involved, then the news would advertise my event. This is going to take a LOT of advertising!!!

EPL rocks!

This is my new blog which I will use to show the progress of my EPL project! EPL week was really fun! I enjoyed meeting the other EPLers and meeting all of the guest speakers! Now I really have to think about doing my project!