“Hi, my name is Laila. How are you doing?” asks the petite brunette wearing a bright red fleece sweatshirt and holding a full black binder.

“Busy!” the pedestrian responds, curtly.

“Hi, I’m . . . ” Laila tries again, addressing a woman wearing pinstripe pants.

“Bye!” the woman interrupts, as she tosses her hair and quickens her pace.

Laila Khan takes these rebuffs in stride, except when she encounters a particularly rude pedestrian. Then her smile diminishes and her pierced nose wrinkles. Khan is a street canvasser working on the Ave in the University District. She is employed by Dialogue Direct to solicit donations for Save the Children, a charity that helps impoverished children worldwide.

Khan works nine and a half hours a day, five days a week. She says that while some people are outright discourteous, most pedestrians simply try to avoid her. “As soon as they see you, they look down,” she laughs. “I mean, can it be any more obvious?”

What drives her to continue her work, she says, is a strong belief in Save the Children. Her green eyes are intense as she speaks earnestly of the need to bring aid to disadvantaged children worldwide. According to its Web site, Save the Children works with children in 110 countries and funnels 90 per cent of its profits into direct aid.

Although Khan has only been with Dialogue Direct for about three months, she is no stranger to the non-profit scene. She took a hiatus from the University of California, Berkeley to move up to the Northwest to run a non-profit with a friend working at Seattle Public Schools. After a year, Khan says she wanted more “hands-on fundraising experience.” She found the canvassing job with Dialogue Direct in late July after she responded to an ad in Craigslist.com, a classifieds Web site. The job seemed like a challenge. “I don’t like to push people so much,” she said. But she felt strongly about the cause, so she decided to take the job.

For Khan, rising to a challenge is not a new experience. She followed the pre-med track through her first four years of undergraduate studies at Berkeley, then switched her major to cognitive science. “I took a cognitive science class, and it really turned me on to it,” she explains. She plans on returning to Berkeley in January to resume her studies.
“Hello! I’m Laila, can I talk to you for a minute?” she asks a tall, heavyset man in his mid 30s.

“That depends, honey,” he smiled, standing a little too close to her. Khan takes a step back and talks about the need to donate to Save the Children. The man listens for a while and then wanders off.

She pauses to collect herself before canvassing the next person. Meanwhile, a pedestrian stops to ask her in a booming voice: “You don’t even ask me do you?”
Khan smiles politely.

“It’s because of how I’m dressed, huh?” the pedestrian asks, referring to his baggy clothes. He continues up the street.

“I meet some great people with phenomenal stories,” Khan says. She says these encounters make up for the rudeness of other pedestrians. “I generally gravitate towards friendly looking people who are alone, [who] don’t look like they have anything else to do.”

Just then she approaches a man who stops and listens patiently to her speech. At one point, he even looks as if he is on the verge of whipping out a checkbook. As she answers his questions, a homeless girl whom Khan knows comes within earshot.

“Do it, she knows what she’s talking about!” the girl tells the man. The man and Khan share a laugh, and eventually the man excuses himself without making a donation.

“A lot of people begin recognizing me after a while,” Khan says. “Sometimes they are even like, ‘I haven’t seen you out here for a while!’”

Khan says she loves the fact that her day is always unpredictable. Sometimes with that irregular workday, however, comes an irregular paycheck, since canvassers are generally paid on commission and have a weekly quota to meet.

“I’m not in it for the money, but I feel pressure to raise money for the charity,” she explains, adding that she usually gets anywhere from 10 to 20 takers each day.

She pauses and approaches a woman. “Hi, I’m Laila!” she says brightly.

“No, thanks!” The woman continues on her way.

Khan takes a breath and tries again: “Hi, how are you today? I’m Laila. . . .”

“I’m a student, I’m not rich!” a man wearing a UW sweatshirt snaps and sidesteps her.

Khan gives a sheepish smile. “The toughest part is dealing with people who are nasty,” she sighs. “It’s like, just be kind! (But) I train myself to stay positive.”

She gathers herself up and approaches the next kind face.

“Hi, I’m Laila. How are you doing today?”