Vassar Haiti Project

Li Zhang ’13, one of our newest additions to the Vassar Haiti Project family, reflects on her experience at the Sag Harbor sale last weekend.  Photos are forthcoming!

My name is Li. I’m a rising senior at Vassar and I joined VHP only a week ago! Last weekend, I attended my first event—the art sale in Christ Episcopal Church, Sag Harbor, Long Island.

Before the art sale started, we set up all the paintings and handcrafts based on genre, color, size and quality. Arranging art works to make them look both neat and aesthetically pleasing was much harder than I thought.  I was assigned to the jewelry and scarf sections, where I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to present them.

From the experience, I realize that it is not only the funds we raise for the Vassar Haiti Project that matters, but also the efforts and thought we put in the entire process that makes this enterprise so meaningful. In this three-day sale, I was able to get to know everyone around, including students, other volunteers and even alumni! The atmosphere was so family-like that I almost forgot I had only joined this group less than a week before!

There are still many things I need to learn but I am really excited and grateful about how VHP as a big family provides a viable means for me to help Haitian self-sustainability (even though my own contribution is slim). I know that our collective experiences create countless possibilities that tap our potential in many different fields (marketing, merchandising, communication, etc.), all of which construct an organic whole that pushes this project further and further.