In February, I spent a great deal of time preparing for our Language Access Film Festival that begins in late March and ends in the beginning of April with the final film in conjunction with our 12-Year Anniversary Celebration. The film festival is about language access as well as the important role of interpreters and translators. We are screening a total of 4 films: Children of a Lesser God, The Interpreter, Lost in Translation, and Listen. At our 12-Year Anniversary Celebration, we will screen the 13-minute short film Listen; we will also host a silent auction and have refreshments at celebration. This month I spent a lot of time making the marketing materials, including flyers, Facebook events, and social media posts such as the 12-Year Anniversary Celebration flyer and the Language Access Film Festival flyer.
Earlier in the month I saved a draft of the Facebook events for the Language Access Film Festival and our 12-Year Anniversary Celebration, so that I could post it when the time is right. I am brainstorming other creative, engaging ways that I can promote both of the events. Online, I think, it might be helpful to post boomerangs or videos because just pictures and text posts can be rather boring so people might skip/gloss over them. Perhaps there could be a fun way to highlight what silent auction items we have through boomerangs or videos. So far, we have received a pair tickets from Louisville Ballet and Lexington Ballet in addition to a gift basket from West Sixth Brewery and Kendra Scott (jewelry store). We also have received donations from Jeremy Daughetry Massage, the Lexington Philharmonic, and Lexington Children’s Theatre as well as refreshments from Ale-8.
This month Vanessa helped schedule a fundraiser/interpreter meet-up in July; she is helping me get all the important information (date/time, flyers, etc.), so I can put it on our website’s event calendar as well as make a Facebook event. This month I also thought about hosting a fundraiser/interpreter meet-up at Hop Cat in August during their Geeks Who Drink event. Hop Cats hosts weekly trivia events, which they call Geeks Who Drink because you can choose to drink as you play trivia. One of the other VISTA members hosted an event there and raised a considerable amount of money, so they recommended it to me; they also gave some great advice about how to raise the money during the event. I believe that trivia would be a great tool to highlight and convince more people to come. Not only would people come for the interpreter meet-up or international hour, but people—who might not ordinarily come for KITA meet-ups—would also come to play trivia.
On February 6, we also officially received our donations from the GoodGiving Challenge courtesy of the Blue Grass Community Foundation. We are very grateful for community focused organizations like BGCF who coordinate events like this to help local nonprofits throughout the Commonwealth. We are also incredibly grateful for every single donor who thought of us during the Challenge; we know there were numerous organizations who participated, and we’re happy that KITA’s mission spoke to you so much that you donated to us. Because of your generous donations, KITA will be able to continue training bilingual individuals who can become certified medical interpreters one day.