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Projects to proceeds: Honors college raises money during CALA-Bash

Freshman students of the Alice Carson Tisdale Honors College sold handmade products for charity on April 11.

In the honors freshman UNVI 102 class, Dr. Monica Greene-Robertson, assistant vice president of honors and college experiences at Â鶹´«Ã½ University, tasked six groups with creating and selling a product during CALA-Bash. Each group had a budget of $75 and all proceeds would be donated. The students were given this task at the beginning of the semester.

The groups raised approximately $1,400 and all earnings will be going to the Boys and Girls Club in Orangeburg.

All products had to be handmade and fully finished before CALA-Bash.

Alexandria Smith, freshman honors student and freshman class secretary, shared that her group, the Blustrious 6, created pillows.

“The Blustrious 6 sold double-sided, tied-knot throw pillows. The pillows are two separate pieces of fleece fabric tied together and stuffed with cotton and scraps of fabric,” Smith said.

Creating the product for the group was not an easy task, Smith said.

“We knew that blankets were an item that everyone loved to have. However, the fabric that we got wasn’t big enough, so we had to change it to pillows. … It wasn’t our first idea. … We realized that the decorative throw pillows would be just as good as a product as the blankets,” Smith said.

Smith said the most rewarding part of the project was everyone in her group working together regardless of the challenges.

Like Smith, Gauryama Blanchard, a freshman honors student, felt accomplished when completing this project.

Blanchard’s group called Regalis Princeps made “junk ID” holders. The term “junked” refers to placing and gluing small decorative charms on various items.

“Our group made ID holders that were junked. … We made many of them that tailored to our National Pan-Hellenic Council organizations, some based on pop culture, and many that were colored-coded, leaving a variety of ID holders to be chosen from,” Blanchard said.

Blanchard’s group determined what items to create based on necessity. With IDs being necessary for daily campus activity, the group decided that ID holders were the best product to make.

Blanchard said that it was rewarding watching the reactions to the products.

“It was rewarding to see people’s reactions to what we made and engaging with us over it. They asked so many questions and supported what we had done,” Blanchard said.

Both Smith and Blanchard said it was fulfilling knowing that their hard work was going to a great cause.

Smith was excited to know that all the proceeds were going to charity, while Blanchard noted how this project showcases Â鶹´«Ã½’s efforts to foster leadership on campus.

Smith and Blanchard are both leaders of their groups and both feel that the project enhanced their leadership.

“Many leaders are given a basic outline of what they should do to determine how to serve others, which forces the person/people assigned to become creative in their approach. My group had executed that perfectly, and I feel will continue to do so in upcoming service opportunities,” Blanchard said.

Smith shared her aspiration of being a middle school teacher and owning a STEM-based school. The project taught her trust and supply and demand, she said.

“This experience really opened my eyes to some of the major factors that go into entrepreneurship, supply and demand being one. … another thing being delegation and trust. Not only as a team leader who had to trust my group, but my group’s trust in me. … I believe that what I learned here will help me build a strong foundation for what is yet to come,” Smith said.