Anya Vedantambe was sipping her favorite drink, bubble tea, when she had an idea. A ninth-grader at Sidwell Friends School, she had been wanting to respond to the distress caused by the corona virus pandemic. She learned about the Greater Riverdale Cares & Route One Communities Care project from her mother, a professor at the University of Maryland. “Oh,” she thought, “I can combine my love for cooking and my hope to help out. I can make and sell bubble tea!”
Anya explains that bubble tea originated in East Asia, and includes tapioca pearls boiled just to the right consistency—the hardest part—added to tea of various flavors. “I offered four different fruit drink flavors: mango, strawberry, Thai tea and sweet black tea,” she says. She also bought three different types of jelly bits (lychee, mango, and peach) to mix in. She sold three different styles of drinks: a slushy with ice and milk, a milk tea, and plain flavored tea.
“Keeping track of the orders,” she says, “was harder than making the drinks.”
In order to sell the tea, Anya created a menu with photos of drinks and various topping options. She included information about GRC&ROCC, and a link to the website, and sent out the email to friends and their families—all within driving distance, since her parents would help her deliver the tea. With a two-drink minimum per house, Anya sold 22 drinks at $5.00 per drink, and some of her buyers made additional donations. Her parents, Ashwini and Shankar, donated the supplies. All in all, Anya raised $200 for GRC&ROCC’s food pipeline, doubling her original goal.
Asked if she has any ideas “bubbling” for other young folks who might want to raise funds, she gave an emphatic “Yes!” Her suggestions: for those with artistic talent, create and sell art or crafts like jewelry and clothing; do a virtual charity walk or a virtual music or dance performance; offer to do yard work for neighbors or online tutoring, with your compensation donated to GRC&ROCC. “Think of things you like and you’re good at,” she advises. It certainly worked for her.
THANK YOU, ANYA, and thanks to your parents for their support!