Yesterday, our super mini pop-up swap at Go Inside, an independent cafe in Hung Hom that hires people with hearing difficulty, ended with huge success.
This is probably the easiest swap we have ever worked on. Because the cafe basically has everything we need – from setting to food and drinks and a cosy atmosphere. And the co-owner and manager of it, Carrie Tang – who also founded Sowergifts, the charity organisation to whom we donated toys after our March 4th pop up swap – is such a kind enthusiast who prepared everything and spared the cafe for its golden business hours just to give space to this swap.
Actually we at JupYeah have been so busy preparing our next big swap on February 24th, 2013; hosting another swap before this was an unbearable thought to us. But I received a text from Carrie last month suggesting this idea because she is hosting a Christmas party on the evening of the 25th (again – forgoing golden business time for a cause), where over 100 grass-root children will be gifted; and the leftovers will be these gifts ( those who don’t fit children will be donated to other organisations. Tang is very well connected with them). We decided to make it happen, briefly promoted it on Facebook and in the end almost 80 Juppers came.
Impression was positive. There were great people bringing great stuff in. It was just a pleasure to see so many suitcases – and we made a corner the “suitcase parking lot”. I personally grabbed a cotton maxi dress that I always wanted to buy it. Another example proving that we don’t necessarily need to shop if we have an open and fair platform for better resource re-distribution.
Quite some people stayed from the beginning till the end, hoping to grab more good stuff. We welcome but it has to be with order. After all JupYeah is not a ‘free market’ or someplace to feed material freaks with free excessive goods. It is great that you find treasures from the pool – but getting too much for yourself doesn’t do you any good at all. It was scientifically proven that excessive possessions bring both mental and physical harm; lightness is the truth.
What we went through was a great experience for us, preparing us for the next swap. We will figure a better way to keep things in order and to avoid chaos. If you have any idea, please email us at info@jupyeah.com.