KidsACT
KidsACT is a musical suburban art camp where children can live life fully. KidsACT provides the opportunity to challenge children to be creative, explore and be willing to take risks by empowering and encouraging children through performing and visual arts and creative writing.
KidsACT was founded by Tonya Mayo, UArts Vocal Performance '19.
Phase 1
With the TD Marketing Grant, I have learned so much about networking than ever before because I am actually going through the process. During phase 1, my goals were to create and print my flyers and business cards and create my facebook page to start advertising. Although it took a while, I can successfully say that I have accomplished my goals for phase 1! I originally wanted a graphic design major to create my flyer and business card but Todd referred me to Fiverr which is a freelance service website.
I thoroughly looked through a plethora of graphics and designs of flyers artist created in the past and I stumbled upon Cosmin who is from Romania. I purchased her premium package which included a PSD and PDF file to print with a six day delivery time. I made sure to tell her exactly what I was looking for and included my logo. I gave her the basic information about what the camp stands for, the location, date, times, highlighted activities, and how to contact me. I also explained to her “I just want to make it kiddish, fun and appealing to children and parents” and she did exactly that! She was able to take my ideas and bring them to life! Since she did an amazing job on the flyer, I went ahead and let her do my business card just to keep everything the same. She was able to give me a quote of $30 to complete the business cards and I was able to tell her the things I wanted on the card. Cosmin did a great job with the work and I am very happy I decided to trust her with my work. At the bottom of the page, you will find attachments of the flyer and business card. I am currently waiting to receive my prints from VistaPrint and should be receiving them in a couple of days.
From this experience, I learned that you have to make sure you are organized and very direct to get your point across. When I was letting Cosmin know what I wanted, I was uncertain about some things but I made sure to be as clear as possible so that she would not get confused. This process has also taught me to plan and do things early since everyone is not on my time and I need things done in a timely fashion for myself and my goals.
I am constantly diving in and learning about my audience and distinguishing myself from my competitors back at home. I am still going through the process of what makes me different but I believe one main difference is I am including visual arts, performing arts and creative writing and through my process, I am allowing Uarts members, alumni and individuals from Maryland to come host a workshop to promote their artistry and have fun with the kids.
Phase 2
The delivery phase has been the hardest phase to finish because of my priorities and time management for school. During phase two, my goals were to create and print my brochures, write a curriculum for the summer camp and create a website. Although it took a long time, I can successfully say that I have accomplished my goals for phase two! While talking to Todd about a website, he told me to research wordpress, wix and squarespace to see which one works better for me. I decided to talk to a lot of artists and business owners that have websites and I decided to go with wix.
I went ahead and purchased my domain for two years and a monthly subscription for two months. While creating my website, I created a curriculum with general and specific goals and had two professors look them over, one from Maryland and the other from the university. Both of them gave me insightful information and wanted me to shape my objectives in different ways. For my brochures, I had Cosmin from Fiverr work on them since she created my flyer and my business cards. I chose her again because I feel very comfortable with her,she already knows what I like, and she is great at communication. After she delivered my brochure (which is down below), I went ahead and got them printed from VistaPrint.
I have also worked on getting registration open the first week of April! Registration is now open and working artists are submitting their workshop request! We used CourseStorm for our registration platform and they can go through my website to register: kidsactmd.com.
From this experience, I learned that making a website and a curriculum is no joke! I did not realize how tedious and time consuming each part was going to be so I often stayed up late nights working on my wording and formatting. I have also learned that it is okay to ask for help from your family or friends. I am a person that will work independently and stress myself out when I really do not have to. I have family and friends that want to help me but I need to take the step and ask for help when I need it. Without my father, none of this would have gotten done on time.
Phase 3
The impact phase has been another hard phase to finish since I had to focus on final exams, projects, graduating and moving back home for the summer. During phase three, my goals were to create and print postcards, t-shirts and create an advertisement on Facebook. Throughout this process, my team decided to create our own postcards instead of paying someone to make them. We wanted to hand write them and make them more personal for our parents.
From this experience, I learned that I could not do everything on my own. With my dad helping me with my registration website, I also did not have a lot of time to advertise on my facebook and instagram pages as much as I would like. I hired a woman named Ashley from Atlanta, Georgia who helps people grow their brand and creates and runs ads on social media pages. Since I am desperate to have people register, I paid her $400 to constantly post on my social media pages and hopefully through that, I will have more registration. I have also learned that this entire experience is about trial and error. There might be a lot of errors but everything is worth a shot and it is all a learning experience.