At age 19, Emma is currently in her second internship at Invisible Children. But within the walls of our San Diego office is not how we first met Emma. We met Emma when she was 17 and on her way to Uganda after she won an all-expenses-paid trip during our 2011 Frontline campaign. I sat down with Emma to learn firsthand how she won a trip to Uganda and what the trip was like so that fundraisers like you can do the same during #zeroLRA.
What originally motivated you to fundraise for a Uganda trip?
After seeing a Roadie screening at a neighboring school, I started an Invisible Children club (of about 30 kids) during my senior year of high school. We set a club goal to raise $10,000, which seemed pretty steep. At first, I just joked about the Uganda trip because I didn’t think our club would actually win a trip – but after we put a couple thousand dollars on our fundraising page and saw that we were on the top five leaderboard, I started thinking that we actually could win it.
What kinds of fundraisers did you do?
We did a combination of small things and large-scale events. I worked at a coffee shop at the time, so I donated all my tips to my page. We also did a benefit show, a Car for CAR fundraiser (where you buy a cheap car from a junkyard and charge people to smash it with a sledgehammer), sold t-shirts, and did other small things that added up. One really useful opportunity we capitalized on was matching our funds through big corporations based on people’s connections with different businesses.
Photo Credit: The Daily Pennsylvanian
How much money did you end up raising?
Somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000 – way more than our original goal!
Man! How long did it take you to raise that much money?
The Frontline campaign was about the same length as the #zeroLRA campaign, but I didn’t even start fundraising until the end of October. So I only had a couple of months to fundraise.
So let’s talk about the Uganda trip. In one sentence, what was the trip like?
It’s super cliche, but it was life-changing.
What kinds of activities did you do on the trip?
It was full immersion in Ugandan culture. We saw all the important natural wonders of Uganda through hikes and tours, and we also visited Invisible Children’s recovery programs, like Schools for Schools and Mend. I met so many incredible people on the trip – both IC staff and other fundraisers – whose friendships have lasted ever since the trip. It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
What was your favorite moment during the trip?
My favorite moment was having tea with the women that worked at Mend. I really love the Mend program because it’s exciting to take something potentially materialistic and superficial and instead turn it into new opportunities and new life. I was able to hang out with the ladies that worked there and even dance with them, so it was overall a really fun and meaningful experience.
How has the trip benefitted you since then?
Anyone who has ever traveled overseas can attest that travel enables you to have a global perspective and helps you understand people that are different from you. So going on a trip to a place like Uganda was an opportunity for me to soak in a new culture and celebrate things I had never experienced before. The trip taught me a lot – not just about a different culture, but also about myself and the kind of work I want to be doing. And let’s be honest, it probably helped me land this internship at IC.
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