Think the Pokemon craze is a thing of the past?
Wrong.
It’s still all about the pokeball; ask the UF Chemistry Club. The groups sells lab flasks painted with designs.
Its hottest selling item: the pokeball flask.
Although most of the flasks, donated by the general chemistry lab, are priced at $3, the pokeball flasks sell for $5 because of popularity, said Erika Klump, club president.
Klump, 21, a chemical engineering senior, said she thinks the rounded bottom of the flask makes it the perfect shape for the pokeball painting.
“We may not make a whole lot, but it’s still fun to do,” she said.
The sale becomes a promotional tool to raise awareness about the club, Klump said. The odd-looking table full of flasks draws people’s attention.
Klump has been in the club since her freshman year and said it is a great way to network.
The chemistry department funds the preprofessional club, which is open to any student interested in the subject, she said.
The club secretary, Benjamin Duong, 20, a pharmacy graduate student, said that last year the club sold more than 10 pokeball flasks.
“We paint what sells,” he said. “It’s this generation’s childhood.”
The club made record-high sales of $181 with the pokeball and Halloween-themed flasks on the Plaza of the Americas Monday and on Turlington Plaza Tuesday.
The club has sold painted flasks since 2007 and does the fundraiser twice a year, said 19-year-old Kyle Chesney, a chemistry sophomore and club fundraising chairman.
After the cost of paint, 25 percent of the proceeds go to a local charity, and the rest goes to the club.
This time, the students of the club chose to donate to Paws on Parole, which Klump described as a program which socializes dogs in shelters to make them adoptable.
She said some dogs the shelters receive are too dangerous to be placed in a home.
Paws on Parole, a partnership between Alachua County Animal Services and the Florida Department of Corrections Gainesville Work Camp, uses inmates to train the dogs and teach them basic obedience skills.
The students are happy people appreciate their hard work.
Duong explained why he thought the flasks sold so well.
“It’s just something dorky to look at,” he said.
He made a molecule kit into a flower and stuck it to the flask he has at his home.
“A lot of people use them for vases,” he said. “It’s something you just gotta have.”
The club sells flasks with flowers in them for the Valentine’s sale.
Duong said a heart is usually painted in the middle of the pokeball flasks, and last year there was a flask painted with the face from the “forever alone” meme.
Valentine’s Day isn’t the only holiday the for which the club makes the flasks.
On Tuesday, Susan Huang, an 18-year-old journalism freshman, stood in front of the table full of painted chemistry flasks, looked at a few and made her decision. She chose a Halloween-themed flask sporting spiders and webs.
“My mom’s birthday is coming up,” she said. “This is great. It’s a quirky gift to give her.”
Courtney Ligon, 20, a biochemistry sophomore, paints a Pokemon-inspired pokeball flask Tuesday for a fundraiser for the UF Chemistry Club on Turlington Plaza.
