Farrington High School GEER Final Report

PART I:  PROJECT WITH SMALL BUSINESS OR NON-PROFIT IN THE COMMUNITY  
Name(s) of your partner(s):  Xpresso CafeName of your project:    Aloha GEER
Briefly describe the status of your project (one paragraph).

The GEER Project Committee, Jennifer Lasconia, Gregory Harrell, Izah Bragado, Delfin Soriano, Rafael Pilar, Luis Joseph Culao, Jayden Guittap, Donzen Dugay, and Goddrick Antolin, have all been working continuously meeting with each other along with the business we are in cooperated with, planning and execution of plans. 

Just like our previous report, we have been consistently advertising Xpresso Cafe to bring in more customers and awareness that they exist since from what one of the many things they wanted help on. So we have passed out their tri-fold menus that provided information about their location, contact information, and information about their menu. Not only that, we have been spreading the word on social media so we are not only spreading the word to the students from Farrington High School but to our community and potentially across the island.  

Recently, the GEER Project Committee has all been collectively working together in creating a list of ideas we would like to share with Xpresso soon to see if they are interested in executing them since the majority of the ideas made are like events or fundraising ideas for both Xpresso and Farrington students. 

 In addition to the list of ideas composed, we are planning on starting another project on top of helping Xpresso Cafe. We plan on doing a food drive for our community starting weight during summer or the next following school year. Thing is, we will need to develop a base plan, basically, our first steps.  We already have thought of starting with research on homeless shelters in the area so we can get an estimate of a potential goal of goods for the shelter we can set when we start the food drive. Then after getting an estimate for the homeless shelter, we would set a goal for those who are unable to find a residency at the shelter and live on the streets. We also thought about providing essentials using our funds with the potential goods we would receive. Essentials such as hair care products and dental care products. 

We are also developing a list of things we would like to use our funds for. We just need to figure out the prices and quotes for each item. To exemplify, one thing off the list is providing Xpresso with an intercom/microphone and speaker set since from the customer service and worker experience, they struggle getting drinks out since not many people can hear them. Plus there was this one incident where a customer got the wrong drink because they were unable to hear whether their order was called up or not.

 List down at least three successes (what worked well).

1. We were able to find a business that is willing to work with us after endless research and calling

2. We were able to start a fundraising campaign with them, where we would sell tickets→ for $5.50 for any drink and $6.00 for a chili bowl. 

3. Advertisement for our business partner is going well. Many students from Farrington and people outside of our school have stopped by to either check out Xpresso Cafe & convenience store or purchase something from there. 

4. We were able to plan things out with our business and we managed to meet with them in person and get involved with our community.

5. Some success that we had was that we were able to work well with each other especially since we already knew each other and were friends which made it easier to advance a bit in this project.

6. Another success that we had was recruiting members which was not much of a problem. Since most of the old members left the project, we found people who are willing to be involved such as our friends. 

List down any “surprises” or something that you were not expecting (positive, neutral, or negative). 
-    Ex: it was easier to find a small business partner than we expected. 

 

Positive: 

• We were surprised that we were able to find a business to help out because we were losing hope in our research and considering how hard it was to even try to get a willing business since the others either rejected our aid or were doing well.

• We were surprised when Expresso Cafe allowed us to let them help out on a fundraiser that one of our members had. We were not expecting that from them and it shows just how much they care about us. They were also very kind, treated us with respect, and welcomed us without a problem. 

• Another thing that surprised us when we met with Expresso Cafe and discussed our project with them is that they were willing to let us sample some of their products when we were there. We found this very surprising because we would have never thought that they would allow us to try samples of food that they spend money on. 

• Something surprising that we found was that most of our members were able to make it to every single meeting without a problem. They were willing to spend their precious time discussing this project and how we can advance with it. Some of them that were not able to make it were informed about what we discussed during the meeting. The appropriate items of the meetings were not a hassle because we did not have to meet in person to discuss them only when we had to discuss them with our leader.

Neutral: 

• We had to recruit more GEER members because the majority of our previous ones had opted out. This was not a problem because a lot of people that we knew were willing to put in time and effort with this project.

 

Negative: 

• I was surprised by how hard it was to find a business who is willing to work with us. (I will be adding on to this (DELETE IF YOU WANT)) We were not expecting that finding a local business would be pretty difficult. Most of the businesses that we have researched did not require help or were not affected heavily by covid. It was also pretty difficult to find small local businesses because at first we were not allowed to support local businesses related to the food industry. Because of this, it became difficult to find a business to support because most of the local businesses have to do with the food industry.

• Something surprising that we found is that most of us mainly agreed with what other people had to say. There were not a lot of opinions on certain topics that were being given. It was also a bit hard to think about how we can advance in this project and how we can improve. When a person was to talk about what they think of a certain topic, most of us would just agree with what they had to say and that would be our first choice most of the time. Next time, maybe we can consider and try to think deeper about the questions. 

What was a lesson learned? (one paragraph) 

There is a lot of good that can be accomplished with vision, resources, and innovative thinking. I thought this grant accomplished its goal of getting schools to partner together with community organizations for a unified purpose. We also learned that community members and organizations want to collaborate with our schools. Many community partners have time, resources, and expertise that can be leveraged to support academy/ career pathway goals and objectives.