The Power Of Service!! :)

Heyy everyone!!

I hope that your week is off to an incredible start! Sorry again that this post is going out a little bit later than I had hoped, I'm doing my best to stay as on-track as I possibly can, as you know this month has been quite the busy one for me so far lol! But it's all really great and exciting stuff, and I can't wait to share more of it with you. I have a lot of really cool stuff to share with you this week, so let's get right into it!! :)

We are now entering our third full week of Best Feeling Ever meetings and getting stronger and better every week! I am so happy to see so many of you attending these, they have been tons of fun so far and I cannot wait to see all the great things that we continue to do together. This is only the beginning!! As I began discussing last week, one of the main things that we have begun doing is planning a number of really cool and fun service events for Best Feeling Ever. As a reminder, our Service Nights are Thursdays at 8:00 PM!! For now, we are focusing these around two main areas: COVID-19 Relief Efforts, and the Black Lives Matter Movement. We have lots of cool and exciting plans for these so far, and to start off this post I will lay out everything we've got! Please take a look at where we are at so far, and at where we are looking at going from here!! :)

You will notice that we are working on a few main projects for each category. For our COVID-19 Relief Efforts, we are working on putting together a fundraiser stream to donate to the organization Doctors Without Borders. For our assistance with Black Lives Matter, we are working on creating an online event that is geared towards talking about how we can actively combat racism and fight for justice and equality. Check out how our plans so far are going for each thing, and take a look at what we still need to figure out... of course if you have any ideas or thoughts of your own that you would like to contribute, please reach out to us and let us know, we would love to hear them!! :)

Best Feeling Ever Service Plans

COVID-19 Relief Efforts

Charity Stream Plans:

• Fundraiser Stream: Raising Money For Doctors Without Borders

• Aiming For Late September, Either One Or Two Days

• Most Likely Will Be Streamed Live Over YouTube And/Or Twitch And/Or Facebook

• Will Feature Both Live And Pre-Recorded Segments

• Components To Include In The Stream:

o Talent Show

o Motivational Speeches

o Meditation/Yoga Stream

o Movie Night

o Gaming Stream

o “Challenge” Stream

• For the Talent Show, Motivational Speeches, and Meditation/Yoga Stream segments, participants will be able to record themselves performing a talent, giving a motivational speech that they wrote, or leading a brief meditation/yoga session, respectively, and submit them to be played during the stream. Alternatively, participants can choose to perform their segment live on stream.

• For the above three types of segments, viewers will be encouraged to send in donations throughout the events in the name of those who are streaming. Additionally, for the Talent Show segment, viewers can be asked to donate in the name of the streamer that they would like to see “win” the Talent Show.

• For the Movie Night, a movie will be played on stream. The movie will be free for anyone to watch, and viewers will be asked to submit donations throughout the movie.

• For the Gaming Stream, participants can play a video game live on stream. We might plan special events centered around certain games such as an Animal Crossing island tour session or art auction that everyone with the game can participate in. Streamers will ask for donations throughout the stream.

• For the Challenge Stream, viewers can send in “challenges” to ask the streamers to do while on stream and donate if the streamers successfully complete them. Streamers will choose which of the challenges they would like to accept.

• We should also plan special Opening/Closing segments for the stream, possibly involving a meditation and/or motivational speech that multiple people contribute to the writing of.

Questions:

• What platform(s) should we use to stream? YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, all three?

• How will the event be structured? Will it take up one or two nights? How long will it be?

• What segments will be live, and which will be pre-recorded? For the live segments, how will this work? How will we switch between streamers who are broadcasting live in different locations? Who will be sharing their screen, and when?

• How exactly will donations work? How will viewers donate?

• What will incentivize viewers to donate? What creative ways can we come up with to get them to donate?

• How will we get participants to sign up to stream/be part of this?

• What other ideas should we include in this?

• How will we promote this? What are some creative ways of getting people to start donating and start getting hyped for this stream?

Promotion/Social Media Use:

• We will use the Best Feeling Ever social media accounts to promote this event.

• Dates and times should be chosen by late August or early September!!

• Submissions for streamers should open up at the beginning of September and close a few days before the event.

• We should reach out to local news outlets to promote the stream.

• We can also do smaller, mini-events leading up to the stream to begin fundraising and encourage participants to start donating.

• We will use our social media accounts to raise awareness for COVID-19 safety/relief and to promote the importance of wearing masks, social distancing, etc., as well as how we can be safe and stay physically and mentally healthy during the pandemic.

• We can include some sort of mask drive/fundraiser as well.

• We will encourage participants to use their own social media accounts as well to promote this and raise awareness for it.

• What other creative ways can we promote this event?

• What name should we give to this event?

Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter Event:

• We are planning an online event, hosted over Zoom, that is centered around the Black Lives Matter Movement and anti-racism work. Free to join and open to everyone.

• We are aiming for sometime in mid- to late-September for this event.

• The event should feature guest speeches from members of local anti-racism-centered organizations, such as ERASE Racism.

• The event will focus on what we can all do to help the movement and to actively be anti-racist. We will talk about things that we can do/have been doing to work towards justice and equality. We will also discuss resources for allyship.

Questions:

• When will this event take place? How long will it be?

• What will be the structure of the event? What will it include?

• What organizations can we get to speak at this event?

• How will we promote this event and spread the word about it?

• Promotion/Social Media Use:

• In addition to using the Best Feeling Ever social media accounts to promote this event, we will also begin using them to more actively support the Black Lives Matter Movement and to put a spotlight on Black people and communities and those of color.

• For example, each week we will do a post on the social media accounts to highlight a Black creator, author, business, etc. We will post on our stories each day to highlight a work by a Black author or creator.

• We will find ways of engaging our social media audience and getting them to share what they are doing to promote justice and equality and stand up for Black communities and communities of color.

• We must always keep thinking of ways to be actively anti-racist as an organization and to keep raising awareness for what is going on in Black communities and communities of colors. We will keep having brainstorming sessions to come up with more ideas.

Other Service

• What else should we raise awareness for? What other causes should we create events around?

• How else can we raise awareness for these and other important issues in our day-to-day lives?

• Please let us know any suggestions that you have, or anything that you would like to see us put into action!

• Thank you for your hard work and contributions, we are very excited to put these plans into action and make them the very best that they can be!

Again, please reach out if you have any thoughts or ideas that you would like to contribute to our planning efforts, I would love to hear them!! Our Service Nights are every Thursday at 8:00 PM, so please come by there if you would like to talk more with us about your ideas and help us solidify these plans!! Thank you so much, I'm so excited to work with everyone to put these plans into action and make a difference :)

Before I wrap up this post, I would just like to talk a little bit more about the joys of service since we are on the topic! Although our plans so far are all in the relatively early stages, I am getting such a great amount of joy from putting these projects together with all of you and I love the planning process. I know that together we have such amazing power to make a positive difference to those in our communities and in the world at large, and it really excites me to think about all of the ways in which we will be able to have an impact on those that we seek to help!! It's going to be so great!! :)

What brings you the most joy when doing service? What really lights that spark in you that makes you know that you are having a great impact on those around you? What are some projects you may have done in the past that have given you this feeling? How can we help spread this feeling around and inspire those around us to take that next step and do more to be of service to others? I'd love to hear your stories and your thoughts!! Most of all, always remember that when we come together, we will be able to do so many more great things than we could even imagine. I'm so excited!! :)

Thank you all so much again for always being so amazing!! I am sending infinite love, and of course lots and lots of warm hugs, to all of you, and I hope that you are all doing so incredible!! Always remember how truly amazing you are, you hold such an awesome amount of potential inside you!! I am beyond excited to see all that we will continue to do as we come together even more. Always remember to keep being kind and loving to yourselves and to each other!! I'm always here for you whatever you need, feel free to reach out at anytime!! LET'S DO THIS!!!! LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!! :) <3

Your friend forever,

Adam Silverstein :) <3