KINDERGARTENERS SELL SLIME TO SAVE WILDLIFE

By Izzy Nesci, Spring High School Intern 2019

On May 29th, myself and an excited group of Kindergarteners hosted a slime, jewelry, and bake sale in support of Wild Tomorrow Fund, raising a grand total of $424. 

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My relationship with Wild Tomorrow Fund began in 2015, when I joined the Wild Tomorrow Fund club at my high school. I started to learn more about the organization through the weekly club meetings, and was always happy to bake for our bake sales. Two years later, I became one of the club leaders, helping us raise approximately $4,000 in that year alone. Wild Tomorrow Fund always showed us directly where our money was going, and the most special way that one of our donations was used was to purchase a giraffe and two zebra. As a club, we came up with names, deciding that Daisy the giraffe and Mickey and Minnie the zebra would be Ukuwela’s newest inhabitants!

When I entered my last year of high school, I knew that I wanted to further my relationship with Wild Tomorrow Fund, and my school gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. Allowing all seniors to conclude their high school experience with nine weeks of an independent study, internship, or creative pursuit, I chose to work with Wild Tomorrow Fund. This included traveling to South Africa for two incredible weeks on one of their volunteer trips, and you can read more about that here! After the trip, I began interning with them in NYC for two days a week, as well as helping out in my school’s kindergarten on the days that I am not here. After a few weeks of this routine, I wanted to find a way to combine my two projects. 

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Because bake sales are our most common way of fundraising in the high school, I thought that it would be fun to have a bake sale hosted by the kindergartners. To make it even more exciting for them, the teachers and I decided to also sell slime - the newest obsession among elementary-schoolers. I knew that they would be excited for the bake sale because they loved all of the photos and videos that I shared with them, especially a video of an elephant drinking a huge bucket of water in less than five seconds that they asked me to play at least ten times. 

After we made the slime and the other Kindergarten class made jewelry, and many of them baked at home with their parents, we set up the bake sale! A few of the kids stayed after school to help sell, guilting those who walked past us to buy something by yelling, “its for the animals!” After the 3 pm rush of everybody leaving school, we calculated that we made $424! All of the kids were so excited, and even more so when I told them that we raised enough to fund the purchase of a new zebra. Though their name ideas may need some work, I am so happy that I was able to get them all involved with and excited about Wild Tomorrow Fund and saving wildlife. 

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So many incredible opportunities have stemmed from me joining the club as a ninth grader, and I am so thankful to have worked with this organization for the past four years.

Wild Tomorrow Fund