2015 Capital Pride Festival - 40th Anniversary Celebration
Since I started Taking Actions in 2010, I contemplated the idea of participating in the Capital Pride Festival, which is Washington DC's largest annual 1-day event with over 200,000 visitors, almost 300 sponsor & vendor exhibits, three stages, two beverage gardens, a family area, and numerous food vendors.
On April 4, 2015, I registered to be a festival exhibitor at the 40th Celebration of Pride in the Nation's Capital, on Sunday, June 14, 2015. Within the next month I started recruiting volunteers to help me run the booth, and by June 2015 I already had 10 volunteers confirmed.
For the booth, I designed a "principles" banner, table runner, and new merchandise (recyclable totes, temporary tattoos, hand fans, lanyards, principle magnets, and updated brochures) to give away while interacting with attendees.
On April 4, 2015, I registered to be a festival exhibitor at the 40th Celebration of Pride in the Nation's Capital, on Sunday, June 14, 2015. Within the next month I started recruiting volunteers to help me run the booth, and by June 2015 I already had 10 volunteers confirmed.
For the booth, I designed a "principles" banner, table runner, and new merchandise (recyclable totes, temporary tattoos, hand fans, lanyards, principle magnets, and updated brochures) to give away while interacting with attendees.
Participating in the festival was a great opportunity to encourage people to spread love, protect the environment, embrace diversity, promote peace, support equality and practice kindness. So, I decided to incorporate Our Actions in our presentation:
- Love Action: Offering "free hugs" and "high fives."
- Environment Action: Giving away recyclable notepads and totes, vegetable/fruit seeds, and our "Green Tips/Facts" cards.
- Diversity Action: Encouraging attendees to participate in a World Trivia game for fun prizes.
- Equality Actions: Asking people to pose for pictures with our "I Support/I Do Not Support" posters.
- Kindness Action: Passing around our "50 Acts of Kindness" cards and doing random good deeds for others.
- Peace Action: Showing a video describing the negative effects (facts and statistics) of acts of violence.
- Love Action: Offering "free hugs" and "high fives."
- Environment Action: Giving away recyclable notepads and totes, vegetable/fruit seeds, and our "Green Tips/Facts" cards.
- Diversity Action: Encouraging attendees to participate in a World Trivia game for fun prizes.
- Equality Actions: Asking people to pose for pictures with our "I Support/I Do Not Support" posters.
- Kindness Action: Passing around our "50 Acts of Kindness" cards and doing random good deeds for others.
- Peace Action: Showing a video describing the negative effects (facts and statistics) of acts of violence.
Since I registered as a "Green Certified Vendor," I created a presentation that we could show on a video, explaining what Taking Actions is, instead of giving out too many paper materials. A lot of the new merchandise was made from
biodegradable and/or recyclable materials to make our display greener, and I opted to use technology to collect attendees information. |
At the festival, we received the "Four Leaf Award" certification (highest is 5) for our commitment to the environment. This was a huge accomplishment, especially because part of our campaign focused on environmental sustainability. |
By the day of the Festival, 6 volunteers called out for personal issues. However, the Festival was a total success; we interacted and shared our mission with over 500 people during the 8-hour event. We received great feedback and support! People started to approach our booth, even before we were done with the set-up; I did not spend more than 10 minutes without talking and interacting with attendees, so since we were so busy we did not have the time to offer "free hugs," or show our "Peace Action" and Presentation videos. The concert's headliners were Wilson Phillips, En Vogue, Amber, Katy Tiz and Carly Rae Jepsen. The exhibits had to be turned down earlier than expected because we had a big thunderstorm; however, the concert kept going as planned.
Thank you, Alma, Irma, Calvin and Imraan for helping out and making this a total success. A special thanks to my friend Timber from Buddhist Boot Camp for donating his awesome books to give away. - AJ
Thank you, Alma, Irma, Calvin and Imraan for helping out and making this a total success. A special thanks to my friend Timber from Buddhist Boot Camp for donating his awesome books to give away. - AJ
What an awesome experience this was! Our first time participating in LGBTQ Pride festivities, and 12 days later history was made; on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage and announced that all Americans should be able to marry the person they love. A huge step for equality and human rights! #lovewins #loveislove #onelove