All photos by Geoff Clyne Photography
Heyo, SuperForest!
Last month I finally stepped out from behind the computer and put on my very first blog-related event! Yay! For those of you who don’t know, I write a food blog called After the Harvest. After two years of blogging, I decided I wanted After the Harvest to do more and mean more, so I took it into “the real world”.
After reading a tweet from a Barista and Cafe Owner in Croatia, I was alerted to a short film with the same name as my blog. After the Harvest: Fighting Hunger in the Coffeelands is a film about coffee farmers in South America who struggle to feed their families for half the year, and how charities such as Heifer International are helping them.
Upon looking further into this film, I noticed that the producer also produced an amazing feature documentary about local food called Ingredients. Brian Kimmel is the producer I speak of, and his company is called Optic Nerve Productions. Thus, with the inspiration from both films and my need to do more with my blog, the idea for a film screening was born. Heifer International seemed like the perfect charity to benefit, so I got to work making plans and dreaming big.
This photo via Dragon Fitness, rad poster by Jon Marro
Even though I have experience as an event planner, putting this film screening together was no easy task. The biggest obstacle I had to overcome was my fear of asking people for help, but once I pushed past that fear, I was able to send out about a billion emails and I ended up getting enough support to pay for half of the theatre rental!
In the end, the following members of my community (local and not-so-local) assisted me in putting on this event, so, before going any further, I must acknowledge them:
Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company
The event was a fundraising success and raised $670 to send to Heifer International — you can read more detail about where the money will go on my blog, here.
This blog post is not just about telling you guys about how successful my event was. What I really want to focus on is that, when you ask for help, you will receive. Don’t be afraid to ask your community to help you achieve your dreams and goals. Odds are, when you are passionate and authentic about what you’re trying to do, people will see that and they’ll want to jump on board. When you’re just getting started, like me, sometimes you actually have to ask because if you don’t, people won’t know what you’re up to!
Even now, roughly a month after this event, I am still meeting and talking to people who didn’t hear about my event or didn’t see the advertising. Instead of letting that get me down, I choose to remember those people as potential members of my community who could help me in the future.
I reached out to my local and not-so-local community to help me out, and I was humbled by the response.
So, next time you want to do something from your heart, remember that nobody expects you to do it alone, and chances are, your community wants to help you … they’re just waiting for you to ask.
In community,
SuperForester Heather
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