a day in the life of a charity street worker

I must admit that I am one of those people who never stops when approached by a charity street worker. I usually smile, keep walking, headphones in and mumble something at an inaudible volume along the lines of "I'm late for work" or "I have no time, sorry".

However after my experience today I can honestly say (hand on heart) that unless I AM late for work or some other important event then I will stop and talk to them for a second. Even if I don't give any money, it's just a nice thing to do.

Today I spent approximately 3 hours stood just outside the gates of The British Museum with Will (right) and Myles (left) trying to get people to guess the value of a nice earthenware vase which we were given for our weekend project on Friday. Our brief said we were to take our objects and use our skills as graphic designers to try and increase their value in some way. My idea was to approach people and ask them to guess the value of the vase after being told a little of its history and after letting them hold it in their hands with whichever person is closest to the real estimated value being the winner. For each guess we asked for a small donation of around 50p which we are going to donate to a Haiti related Charity. It was a day of highs and lows, we almost jacked it in after 20 minutes because no-one wanted to know but eventually we talked to some very nice people and in total we collected £30.15 and 4 US cents.

The picture above is of Will, Myles and Walter, a country hopping Australian traveller who came out with easily the quote of the day and summed up our feelings perfectly.

"It's a sunday, of course I have time"

We were also impressed (but also slightly scared) by his beard.

Tomorrow we are going to try at Chelsea and see how much we get.....presenting at 2pm