Green PEPY Bracelets

Those of you who have participated in PEPY trips or held large fundraising events in the past may be familiar with the green PEPY “charity bracelet”. These are just like the many other super trendy charity bracelets you see decorating the wrists of celebrities in support of breast cancer research, aids prevention, making poverty history, and so on….and I have a huge box FULL of them, for your fundraising pleasure. We recognize that these PEPY bracelets may be green in color, but they are not so "green" in the environmental sense.  However, as they were purchased for us in bulk at the start of PEPY, we think it is still more "green" to have them be used and worn on wrists than sitting in a box. 

Although the "charity bracelet" craze may have faded a little around the world, we are lucky that here in Japan, as all things kawaii (cute) always seem to stay as an "in thing". Not to mention, it’s an accessory, it’s cute, and it’s for a good cause…it’s a piece of cake to flog these bad boys.

So here are a few ideas for spreading the green love, accessorizing the Japanese masses, and making some money for PEPY.

1. At any event (school event, international events, JET events, sports events) sell the green bracelets (for 50 or 100 yen each) at a stall advertising the work PEPY does. I also have handmade gift bags (made from recycled PEPY calendars) which you can sell the bracelets in!

2. Use the bracelets as prizes in fundraising competitions.  We all know how much kids hate to go away empty handed at the end of a game of bingo in English class, when the winner got a nice big shiny sticker. So if you are doing a competition fundraiser, why not use the bracelets as runner-up prizes, or part of the competition itself (eg. extra points awarded to contestants who buy and wear a PEPY bracelet throughout the competition), that way everyone wins! Or for other school events, give a bracelet to every student/teacher who donates some money.

3. Lucky Dip. This was one of my favourite games as a kid. Wrap up some small “prizes” (eg. PEPY bracelets, sweets, stationery) and throw them all in a big cardboard box with a heap of torn up scrap paper or scrunched up old newspaper. Charge people 100yen per go to dig around in the box and grab themselves a prize! The great thing about this game is, if people aren’t too happy with the prize they get first time round, they will play again and again! (it’s like those addictive UFO Catcher games in the arcade!)

4. Treasure Hunt. Hide the bracelets around your school/community centre/a local park/wherever is a good place to have a large scale event. Give the participants a time limit, have them search for as many PEPY bracelets as they can in the given time. Whoever collects the most bracelets wins a prize, everyone else gets to keep a PEPY bracelet. The great thing about this as opposed to other treasure hunts is that the bracelets are easy to carry once they have been found…your winner may have bracelets up to their elbows by the end of the game. (Some points to bear in mind with this game… remember how many bracelets you hide and where you hide them…you don’t want bright green bracelets littering public areas if you leave them behind unfound).

5. Send a “Thank You” gift pack to people who sponsor you…including a letter about PEPY/your experience on the trip, a photo from your trip or a PEPY postcard (I have a heap of these too if you need some), a small souvenir from Cambodia and a PEPY bracelet. (Tell people beforehand that they will receive a PEPY gift pack if they sponsor you, as a kind of incentive, rather than just asking them for money!).

6. Sell PEPY gift packs at events. I know a girl who did this at the JET Soccer Tournament (who donate large proportions of their profits to PEPY) a few years ago. She made gift bags with sweets, cakes, and other small prizes and sold them to spectators and players in between games. Throw a green bracelet in there and see if you can deck out an entire team with a matching accessory!

7. Use your position as a foreign resident in Japan! Foreigners in Japan can often attract a lot of attention and are often looked at as representatives of not only their own country, but of foreign countries as a whole. Use that position as an opportunity to educate people, not only your students, but the people in your community, about the types of problems facing developing countries that are just a few hours flight away from our comfortable lifestyles here in Japan. Your first hand knowledge of and experience with PEPY is more valuable to these people than anything they will read in the news or see on the TV. Wear your own PEPY bracelet as a sign of your constant recognition of those problems and as a symbol of solidarity with other PEPY supporters. That is after all the very idea behind charity bracelets in the first place.

If you would like some PEPY bracelets to sell for your own fundraising, please email me (Aileen) at ajetsig@pepyride.org