Some past meetings-

Over the past few weeks or so we have had a few meetings to talk about what we will do, for who and brainstorming ideas to raise money. So far we have come up with T-shirts, corporate sponsorships, team registration fees, raffles, donations and goal sponsorships. It will be interesting to see how all this works out as we go along.

We also talked about equipment donations but probably will officially rule them out because the cost to ship equipment to Africa would outweigh the significance of the donation. However, I had also mentioned we could sell donated equipment or better yet, donate it to schools in need in our area for an even more diversified effect and help those at home and abroad.

We will be discussing these options further in more meetings.

Another thing we are doing, will be asking corporations to match anything we get donated in order to try to increase our overall donations to the African organizations.

Creating the website

In building the website I tried to incorporate as much of the Africa and community aspect as possible.

I began in the banner by incorporating the three major flags as different elements of the image. The flags lined up together showed the unity of the project between us in DC, our counterparts in Tanzania and the people of Africa as a whole we were aiming to help.

Similar images and colors are incorporated into the logo which you can read about in a previous entry.

The content of the page mostly reflected the event, as this was our initial primary goal. However, as the organization we have attempted to create is not solely an event, but a real message an cause for the African people, I incorporated other sections, Such as the affiliate organization information pages and the donations page.

Within these pages, I used pictures provided by the organizations to better illustrate what they do and exactly who we are helping.

The registration page allows users to register their team for the even so they can play and donate money for our cause.

The website will continue to be updated and grow as we get more content and the event grows closer.

The Brand/Image

Name

After much playing around with backronyms of GOAL, GOAAL, SOCCER and others I began to play around with other words and official sounding abbreviations. My first real pass at the name was CUFFA - Collegiates For African Aid, however that didn't quite flow with everyone- so playing around a bit more, I came up with CFAA - Collegiates For African Aid- this was a winner, however the name and domain CFAA.org was already taken by the California Firefighters Athletic Association- as they were not willing to cooperate and lend their abbreviation or domain out- we opted for DCCFAA, or District of Columbia Collegiates For African Aid.

This got across the message, localized the cause and was effect and official sounding. A little long, but it worked.

Slogan

As a group effort, we played around with different phrases, some about the no shoes aspect, some about school and help. We settled on the simple but meaningful,
Score a Goal, Save a Life - which became Score a Goal Save Lives- as the group thought this sounded more effective.

Symbol

Creating the logo was somewhat of a group effort as I rendered various designs and then incorporated feedback from the group into future revisions.

In the end chose this one:



[EDIT- I realized, this logo doesn't have the DC- click here, for that one]
As you can see, I incorporated several elements into the design.

The DC flag supports the the design and gives it bounds. As the event will take place in DC at American. However, the globe centralizes the design because what we do in DC will have a global effect, specifically in Africa- the continent featured on the globe. The globe is pictured as soccer ball because that is the main uniting force we are using in the organization and it is how we communicate with people of different origins, through common grounds of sport. The C is large because the college students are the driving force in raising the money and putting on the activities, the are making a different in the world (which is on an axis of the C), but they are all doing it for Africa as the colors of the letter represent.

The slogan also appears to remind those what it is all about.

DCCFAA community service option

For my community service option I elected to work with Irene and others from our class to develop a organization/event to raise money and raise awareness for struggling teens/kids in Africa.

What we came up with is DC Collegiates For African Aid.

We will be hosting a soccer tournament and clinic on April 20th. Check out my blog on the project for more.

http://dccfaa.blogspot.com/








Adam

The project DCCFAA

So when we all met together, Irene described a vision of getting people together to raise money for African youths while celebrating and honoring the sport of soccer which is a major part of many African youths lives.

So far we have met and discussed many times to discuss the conditions of where these kids live. Learn about their conditions and the organizations we will be working with to help them. Instead of work for an already existing Not for profit, Irene wanted to start her own not for profit event that would benefit these youths. She chose soccer as the medium due to her existing connection to the sport and the connection which the kids of the African nations had with it.

So far we have worked in developing a name for the organization and event and connecting with the other organizations.

The website I have created as part of my contribution is at dccfaa.org - it is still under-construction and we are revising it as we go but it gives a background on who we are and who we are working with. What we are doing and what the event will be. Soon it will be able to directly take donations for our cause to benefit the kids in Africa we are working for.

Some of the organizations we are working with are the IDYDC, FHI and http://dccfaa.org/about/usawa/.

These organizations are mainly based in the Iringa area of Tanzania in Africa. They focus on helping disabled, impoverished, and other kids teens and young adults. Additionally treating, educating, helping and preventing the spread/contraction of HIV, AIDs and other infections.

It has been pretty cool to help work on a project that actually has a global impact on life. As we get nearer to the event and as people begin to register this will really get cool. I hope that we raise enough money to really make a difference in the lives of these kids and that the event goes well and we are able to bring awareness of African youths and their condition to this area.