May Whitby's Force be With You: Impact of The Rookie Wookies

On January 29, 2016, a student group that would become known as The Rookies Wookies was formed at Whitby School in Greenwich, CT.  This student group started to meet once per week, on Wednesday mornings before school, with a simple idea of planning a a Star Wars-based fundraiser.  As the faculty advisor, my job was to help organize this growing team of students, foster their excitement about the Star Wars universe, and figure out a way to channel this energy into something positive.  The team was motivated, talented, and looking to make a difference.  Our weekly podcasting group, "The Think Tank," had been discussing a possible "May the Fourth" event to coincide with Star Wars Day.  But... what should we do?

Luckily, 7th grader Jasmine found out about the official fundraising arm of the Star Wars, called Star Wars: Force for Change.  Through this organization, we could choose to support a variety worthy causes. "The Rookie Wookies," named by 4th grader Ava and made official on February 16, 2106, decided to go with UNICEF!  Says 7th grader Sophia, "UNICEF protects the rights of children around the world, and gives them the basic materials to live.  I really want to help these children."  On this May the Fourth 2019, I find myself thinking back on what this group has accomplished, for UNICEF, for Whitby, and for themselves.  So, how did they do it?  Read on, find out, and may Whitby's Force be With You!

-Phil Lohmeyer, Upper School Design Teacher, May 4, 2019

Hello, my name is Jasmine, and I am a 7th grader at Whitby School.  Recently in Design Class we learned about “The Hero’s Journey,” a type of story that has been used many times throughout history.  Some friends and I organized a fundraiser at school, and it went really well so we were asked to write a blog post about it.  Because I was the one who found the charity organizations (Force for Change and UNICEF), and just finished studying “The Hero’s Journey,” I thought I would try to write my blog post as its own…Hero’s Journey! 

JUST AN ORDINARY DAY...

A not-so-long time ago in a school not-so-far away, a group of Whitby students from Upper School got together to try and plan something for Star Wars Day.  If you didn’t know, Star Wars day is May 4th (Get it?  May the Fourth (Force) be with you!).  So, we decided that we should try to do a movie screening and watch the original movie, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977). There were just 3 or 4 of us at the first Star Wars meeting with Mr. Lohmeyer, and we thought “Hmm, maybe Star Wars isn’t as popular as we thought...  Should we really try to do this? What if nobody comes?” 

OUR CALL TO ADVENTURE... Luckily, as we started to spread the word about our Wednesday morning meetings, more kids started to show up.  We were just going to get together and watch the movie on May 4th, but then I found this really cool non-profit organization called Force for Change that is officially related to Star Wars, and also donates to UNICEF (a great cause)!  So on that day, January 27 2016, I convinced our committee (still unnamed) to turn this movie screening thing into a fundraiser for Force for Change and UNICEF.

CROSSING THE THRESHOLD… As I said before, we still didn’t have a name, so we took some suggestions. The Jedi Council? It’s been done. The Padawans? Maybe too obvious. Then our youngest member, 4th grader Ava, had a great idea: “What about The Rookie Wookies?”   Perfect! We all started to really like the idea of being “Rookie Wookies” and made Chewbacca (The Gentle Giant from the Star Wars movies) our official mascot.   Now a team of 10 kids, we were fully committed to this idea. We started to think of ways to get other Star Wars fans involved.

TESTS, ALLIES, AND ENEMIES… Since we wanted to do the event in the PAC, we had to get the support of Mrs. Rathus, Ms. DiNicola, and the Theatre department. We realized that our enemy was… TIME! Even though the event was a few months away, there was a lot to do. Our challenge was to advertise the party so people would come. We wanted to design and put up posters, send emails, and even hand out fliers at dismissal to kids and parents.  This was definitely a challenge, because nobody wanted the fliers!

PREPARING FOR THE BIG CHALLENGE… To get ready for Star Wars day, we started coming up with ways that people could donate to Force For Change and UNICEF. We thought of a raffle, where all of the "Rookie Wookies” would bring in prizes.  Some 5th an 6th graders made a bake sale so that there could be snacks at the party. Also we wanted to make up some games so younger kids would want to come and could pretend to be part of the Star Wars universe.

SEIZING THE SWORD… We brought in all of the prizes and made a really cool display in US-G! This would help other kids to want to come to the party, and get excited. The day of the event (May 4th), we were all super excited. We had come to school wearing Star Wars costumes or t shirts. We were talking about Star Wars all day. And then it was time for the event: It went perfectly. Our goal was to raise $1000 dollars. We not only met our goal, but we exceeded it by raising exactly $1328!

THE ROAD BACK... So now that Star Wars Day is over, it's back to reality. We exceeded our goal thanks to the help of everyone who came to the event and supported the bake sales, games, and raffle. Our final meeting of "The Rookie Wookies" was last week, and we talked about having even more people come to our May Fourth party next year. We will have a lot of work to do, but it will be worth it to help out Force for Change and UNICEF! Thank you for reading and May the Fourth (Force) be with you!

-Jasmine S., 7th Grade student at Whitby School, first posted May 2016

With a resurgence of Star Wars fandom, the members of The Rookie Wookies found some new recruits and planned another  "Force for Change" fundraising event, this time to support UNICEF Kid Power.  Our donations would fund UNICEF Kid Power Bands, which can earn therapeutic foods for children around the world through physical activity.  For the next chapter of "The Rookie Wookies" we turned to now-7th-grader Ava, who originally named "The Rookie Wookies" back in 2016, for a new logo and poster design:

This time, the entrance fee of at least one Star Wars toy or game per person was raffled off to the event participants.  Each Color team (Red, Blue, Yellow, Green) had a collection of prizes, so event attendees could put their raffle tickets into the container of their choice.  We took photos of our earliest prizes and created posters, which helped us to gain some buzz for the event.

The 2018 event raised $1,932.18 in funds, and a check was sent from Whitby School to UNICEF’s New York City office on November 5th, 2018.  From Hannah Howe-Lubowich of UNICEF Kid Power, "Huge thanks to you and The Rookie Wookies for raising funds for UNICEF Kid Power and helping to empower even more children to make a difference in this world!"  Our donation will pay for 64 UNICEF Kid Power Bands, which can earn therapeutic foods for children around the world through physical activity.  It was an honor to facilitate the second "Rookie Wookies" fundraiser for UNICEF along with co-chairs Rita Lovett and Jonathan Chein.  The students made contributions not only to this great cause, but also to our school community.  I am sincerely proud to be the Faculty Advisor of this important Student Group!" 

- Phil Lohmeyer, Upper School Design Teacher & Faculty Advisor of "The Rookie Wookies."