Popping Fun at the Asian BBQ Festival

Popping Fun at the Asian BBQ Festival

By: Ruichen Feng

As a member of the Capital Youth Outreach Club (CYOC), I volunteered at an Asian BBQ festival in Rockville this Saturday. It was a summer gathering event for the community, featuring BBQ, beers, and food, along with free music and kids' activities. We arrived before the festival officially started to set up our CYOC booth to introduce our organization to the public. We also hosted the festival's "kids' zone," which included a basketball game (supplied by my family), a bouncy castle, a ring toss game, a paint table, and more. Several parents, including my mom, ran a stand selling popcorn and cotton candy.

While looking around, I saw one of my friends from Chinese school working at the popcorn machine, so I decided to join him. The machine was confusing at first, but I eventually figured it out. After the festival officially began, the host made some announcements, we received pizza and meat skewers for lunch. Soon, people started arriving to buy tickets and concessions. Not many people visited my station, likely because it was right next to the cotton candy stand. We changed our sales strategy to a promotion: buy two cotton candies, get a free popcorn. This helped increase popcorn sales since cotton candy was very popular. As a result, we got some business over time. Most of my time there was refilling the popcorn machine and serving popcorn. It was rewarding to make the business better and to see all the kids having fun in our kids' zone.

Around 6:00, the festival started to wrap up, and most people had left. I helped collect and dispose of trash and also packed up and cleaned our area. As our car drove away, I reflected on all the people I served, their happy faces, and their enthusiastic energy. Volunteering at the Asian BBQ festival was a great experience that taught me the value of community service and teamwork. It felt amazing to contribute to an event that brought so much joy to the community. I realized that even small actions, like making and selling popcorn, can make a big difference in creating a fun and memorable event for others.