The school festival was coming. My daughter announced she'd run her own booth with her best friend—writing names in Hangul. It was a fundraising festival with food trucks and parent's booths, activity booths and performances. Theirs would be the only kid-run booth.
They named it "Forest of Name" and wanted to prepare at home together. My middle one joined in—three girls making their booth. I pulled out patterned paper, laminating sheets, palm-sized calligraphy paper, and alphabet stamps. Little hands cut paper in half, rounded every corner, stamped the booth name. They chose several fonts for writing names, made a menu board, decorated a sign, and laminated everything.
On the day of the festival, the girls set up next to the Korean booth. Classmates who loved Korean culture came to get their names written. Sometimes curious strangers approached, received their names written in the font they picked, and dropped donations. Yet under the blazing sun, the kids tired quickly. They closed the booth by late morning, got slushies, and wandered off to enjoy the festival.
I volunteered as a parent helper at the book sale. Prices dropped as hours passed, with bonuses piled on. I loved watching kids dig through books hunting favorites, adults bringing children to recommend books, people thrilled to score multiple books cheaply. I bought two bagfuls for my own kids. A treasure of a day.
