Movie Night with Mayo High School

Recently, the UNICEF Club at Mayo High School, in Minnesota, hosted a super successful outdoor movie event and raised over $2000 for UNICEF! To make the event financially feasible, they reached out to local businesses and organizations. A program in their community called “Movie in a Box” allowed them to rent all the movie equipment they needed for free. They were even able to provide popcorn at their event at a low cost. This alleviated almost all the possible expenses they would have otherwise had to cover with the amount they fundraised.

To spread awareness about their event they promoted the event throughout the school by plastering the hallways and classrooms with posters, making announcements over the PA system, speaking to their classes, and having their school’s TV show (pshh, get on their level) advertise it. They relied heavily on Instagram and Snapchat to spread the word to the rest of their community.

The process of decorating their event was also significant because they wanted the fundraiser to be aesthetically appealing (for the cute polaroids of course) to students to draw in larger crowds. They held the UNICEF outdoor movie fundraiser on their school’s football turf and wrapped the fences circling the field with Christmas lights, balloons, and streamers. All of the decorative materials used were borrowed from generous club members.

Looking over their strengths and weaknesses from this outdoor movie fundraiser, they found that their strengths included reaching out to community organizations and businesses, publicizing the outdoor movie in their community through a variety of media platforms, and appealing to more people through the decorative set up of the event. For future UNICEF fundraising events, they now know how crucial it is to carefully plan out every volunteer’s responsibility. Their biggest tip to any other clubs interested in holding a similar event is to test the technological equipment ahead of time to ensure that there’s not a problem with the sound system or image projection.

This Upcoming Year

In this next year, Mayo HS hopes to hold more informational events in their community, hold more fundraisers, and become more familiar with UNICEF’s work to bolster their understanding of our organization. It’s only their first year as a club, but they already have the ambitious goal of raising $6000 - which I have no doubt they will be able to do! 

They hope that their work in pursuing UNICEF’s mission impacts club members in such a way that they see themselves as youth leaders who can make a positive difference in this world.

… because they can! YOU can! Each of you are a global citizen capable of changing the world - changing your world. So do what you can, when you can. That is all anyone can ask of you.

What quotes inspire them?

Emily, President and Community Building chair

-"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” -Oscar Wilde  

Haley, Vice President and Advocacy chair

-“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” -Barack Obama

​Shikha, Secretary and Social Media chair

-“Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.”  -Soren Kierkegaard

What inspires you?! Share with us what motivates and encourages you to keep fighting for a better world for children. And remember, your work - our work - should always be to put children first.

Questions? Reach out to me at council@unicefclubs.org or Mayo HS at mayounicef@gmail.com.

-Malika