Rajeny's Genius Hour Project

Hey all!! We are now in week 11 of this genius project journey and I'm super excited to share that I have my masks ready to go! My masks and scrunchies are ready to be shared with friends and family on social media in hopes to raise some money for a local non profit organisation.  There have been a lot of challenges along the way but I'm glad I pursued this idea and I've gotten this far. I also decided I am going to be donating to Brant Food for Thought instead because of an incident while I was supply teaching. It's heartbreaking to see a child go without food and nutrition, that is why I really want to raise money for this organisation that provides nutrition programs for elementary and secondary schools in Brant.  Stay tuned for an update on how much money I can raise by next week! I of course will continue to sell afterwards, hopefully up until May so that I am able to make a sizable donation at the end of this.

 Hello again! Another week has gone by, and I spent my Genius Hour making some more masks! I am now on to my second colour of masks (white) and will be starting to make the tan coloured ones next week. Once I have all three colours, white, tan & black, ready to go, I can share my project on social media and get ready to raise some money.  Making these masks has been great, I can tell my sewing skills are only improving with each masks I sew! They may not be perfect, but I'd say they're pretty good for a beginner sewer.  In terms of where the donations are going, I have narrowed it down to either H.O.P.E or The Rosewood House. H.O.P.E is an organization run by and for consumers of mental health services in Brant. They also have an outreach program providing peer support and personal care items for mental health in-patients. The Rosewood House provides emergency shelter for adult men and women in addition to assisting in overcoming the root causes of someone's homelessnes

Hey everyone, I'm back with another weekly update on my progress towards my goal for this Genius project!  It's going well, despite the fact that I'm a bit behind schedule. But thats okay!! My goal will still be achieved just on a different timeline. With this week's allotted 90 minutes, I was able to make 3 more complete masks and I have a bunch more patterns cut out and ready to be sewn! The plan was initially to allot more than the set 90 minutes in order to get some more masks completed, however with all of my other classes I couldn't find the time. Hopefully within the next few weeks with course work dying down, I will be able to spend more time sewing!  I have already shown some of my family what I've been working on and have already collected some donations! I am super grateful for those who have and hopeful that my peers will want to donate to those who are less fortunate. It'll still be great even if they don't donate by purchasing a mask, and o

Hey Everyone! I'm back with another update on my Genius Hour project! So far it's going great, BUT one thing is for sure, I was definitely over-confident with my timeline lol! With my initial timeline, the goal was to have the first batch of products ready to go by Week 7... which is next week.  I don't think I will be ready by then but of course there is still hope! I didn't take into account how much time it takes to make just one mask, but I will get there eventually. As I make more masks, it should start to get easier and take less time to sew each one. Thus, I am still hopeful I will be able to have something to sell, hopefully by week 8. I will just have to devote more than the set 1 hour of time to get this done.  In terms of either selling the product on Instagram versus an E-commerce site, I think it's best to go with Instagram for now. Based on the scale of this, I won't be selling enough to make the transaction fees on E-commerce websites worth it. I

Hey everyone!   This week’s Genius hour was spent putting my sewing skills to the test! I have been practicing making masks in order to prepare myself to make a quality product. I started off with finding a sewing pattern that I liked and that I would easily be able to use. This was the easy part as there are plenty of free mask patterns out there, so if you were looking to make your own masks, the resources are out there! It’s been years since I’ve used a sewing machine so my first attempt was not perfect as I was still trying to get the hang of it again. By the time I got to the third practice mask, it was looking pretty good.  I have purchased the necessary materials to get me started, such as elastic, thread, toggles, and fabric. I thought I would start with just 3 basic colours, and only about 2 yards of fabric (just in case no one buys them lol). But hopefully I will be able to make a good product and market it in a way people will want to purchase, especially if the profits are

This week was spent researching local organizations in my community who help those in need by either providing shelter, food, or support resources. Through my research, I have found multiple organizations I could possibly donate to that would benefit from more help. I also reached out to an organization about possible volunteer opportunities and will hopefully have an update on that soon!   Reading about what these organizations do for the community has motivated me even more to devote my time to giving back. These organizations can only function if they have the funds, thus they rely a lot on donations from the community. I hope that I am able to raise some money that can go towards providing necessities like shelter and food. In my opinion, it should ultimately be a human right, but unfortunately not everyone sees it that way. Volunteering my time and giving what I can is small step in the right direction.   After a lot of back and forth and bouncing off ideas to friends and family,