Pencils of Promise

The PoP Syndrome

The PoP Intern Team recently created “PoP in the Park Night” at Bryant Park in NYC. Dalton HS student and brilliant PoP Intern Flo Wen writes about her experience:

In the words of Samuel Johnson, “Change is not made without inconvenience.” Speaking broadly, Pencils of Promise illustrates Johnson’s wise words through its daily progress; PoP’s movement strives to impact educational opportunities in the developing world, yet we’ve had some bumps along the way. We faced some bumps ourselves at Monday’s PoP in the Park event, an afternoon planned by PoP’s interns in order to gain support, to further fuel the movement. A last-minute change of plans was necessary, yet the accompanying inconvenience was miniscule compared to the experience at Bryant Park.

The plan was simple. Each Monday night throughout the summer, Bryant Park becomes an open cinema for the public, screening free films of all sorts. For years, thousands have enjoyed Hitchcock classics, 1950s musicals, Bond thrillers and a myriad of other types. This past Monday, July 19^th, it was The China Syndrome, a 1979 Fonda-Douglas classic that would be projected on the big screen.  We planned to give out bags of PoPcorn – given our title as well as the movie-snacking tradition – and collect email addresses from those who wanted to be in the know about PoP. The vision was to bring our friends and park-goers together to learn about PoP while munching on Popcorn, raising awareness and gaining supporters while remaining consistent with the film-festival theme.

But, as Johnson so keenly predicted, obstacles had to be overcome, and changes had to be made. On-and-off showers throughout that Monday threatened the sunny afternoon we envisioned, as well as Bryant Park regulations that inhibited our plan; we soon learned that collecting email addresses and handing out popcorn bordered on solicitation, prohibited in the park. Slightly disheartened, we found a spot on the lawn, deciding that we would simply “chill” and munch on the popcorn ourselves. Chill is what we did; after rounds of connectivity games and fits of laughter, our disheartenment transformed. Mid-“movie game”, my fellow intern Eva Gonzalez exclaimed that “this is the most bonding we’ve done all summer.” The time we thought we’d waste due to unexpected rules was spent in a tight circle – bonding, as Eva said, through our park picnic and intimate conversation. Yet the circle was drastically opened when the question of what to do with all the popcorn was addressed. We began quietly giving it away to surrounding neighbors who’d requested a bag, people much more receptive to unknown food distributions than we had expected! Soon enough, fellow viewers all around the lawn began to raise their arms, giving us a sign that they too wanted a popcorn bag, they too wanted what was being shared: a domino effect, spreading through the green. We grabbed as many bags as we could, running to those too far to reach, raising new curiosities as we passed. “What’s this for?” We’d hear from those who’d begun to snack. “We’re Pencils of Promise!”

Once we’d handed out all of the popcorn, we continued to “chill” with our friends, eating out of those same paper bags as our surrounding neighbors. Without bordering on solicitation, we’d managed to distribute our snacks and spread the word: PoP. They could munch it; they could see it on our matching t-shirts; they could hear it on the lawn. Plans had changed, inconvenience experienced, but our objective for the afternoon remained untouched: having fun and effectively spreading the word, the PoP Syndrome.

Tags: high school, Internship, NYC, The PoP Movement