Day 15

Today we drove up to maintenance which was pretty interesting because I've never gone into the building. We spoke with the head of the Building/Grounds and gave her our overview. She explained that benches are tough outdoors because when it comes to shoveling and mowing the grass, they'd have to be moved which is a pain for the workers. She suggested indoors might be easier, which was a little unsettling because now we didn't know what to do Monday and Tuesday because obviously we weren't planting flowers outside anymore. However, this idea reminded us of Kelly's suggestion. Next year, in the new athletic facility there will be a wellness yoga studio from my understanding. Since our Kindness Bench fits that theme perfectly, we're going to speak with Carin and see how it would work in there. Instead of plating flowers outside, we decided we'd buy a pot, paint it similarly to our bench and have it go inside of the "Wellness Area". I'll further discuss the pot and plant in our reflection. 

Daily project hours: 3

Total project hours: 48

Week 3 Reflection

This past week was my favorite because it was when we started to see our work finally pay off. There were a lot of moments of question, for example what we would do with the legs, or what we would do with our last 2 days of senior project, but we problem solved and figured it out. Although it was stressful straying away from our original plan, it honestly worked out for the better. I’d volunteered at a thrift store before and really enjoyed it, but it was a project that I did for about two weeks. Only volunteering at the thrift store for 2 days seemed sort of like a slap in the face to them, so not volunteering opened our minds to new ideas. As previously stated in my blog post, we wanted to plant flowers outside. Particularly we wanted to plant perennials because they grow back every year, which symbolized our lasting connection to Proctor and the promise that we’d made to one another to come back every year. After speaking with maintenance and learning that the bench should go inside, we were sad about the perennials idea falling through, but still hopeful that we could think of  another thoughtful item to donate. I really enjoyed the painting aspect of this project so my first thought was to paint more. We e went to Lowes and thought we could buy a plant and pot, paint the pot similarly to our bench, and donate it to the new facility. I really wanted what we donated to be thoughtful and actually have meaning, so my eyes lit up when I came across a pineapple plant. Although it sounds silly and foolish, pineapples actually represent ‘Welcome’. If you notice, people or restaurants will sometimes put subtle pineapple decor at the doorstep to welcome others. Since this wellness/yoga facility is brand new, it definitely needs to some type of welcoming, so the pineapple plant is perfect! Even better, once the pineapple reaches full size it can we eaten by community members, (hopefully it tastes good) and the will grow back yearly, because is an idea the three of us liked because we can come back and look at its growth! This week taught me that rolling with the punches and being opened minded can really find you great success. I’m typically a really black and white person and NEED to stick to a schedule, but this week as taught me that being creative is okay, and actually great.

Day 14

Today we went back to Lowes to buy more spray because we needed a good amount and didn't want to run out. We sprayed the bench with three coats, which was irritating because beach time we had to wait for it to dry before applying another. We then measured the bench and emailed maintenance that we wanted to donate it to Proctor and wanted to set up a time to meet Wednesday. We originally wanted to donate the bench and volunteer at the thrift store, but we'd only be able to volunteer for 2 days which seemed somewhat useless to us and them. We decided to have a change of plans and rather then volunteering Monday and Tuesday, we would not only donate the bench, but we would buy and plant flowers around it the bench. This would require much conversation with maintenance so we're going to discuss this Monday. 

Daily project hours: 4

Total project hours: 46

Day 13

Today was our last day to prep the bench to be sprayed for tomorrow. This was arguably the most important day, because it was our last chance to put any paint on the bench. Once it is sprayed, there's no turning back. We basically went over the designs to make sure they look bold and bright. We then went over the white spots in the white paint so it looked clean. We had a few smudge and dirt marks that we wanted to cover up so the bench looked clean and neat. 

Daily hours: 4

Total Project hours: 42

Day 12

Our splatter paint dried and looks so much better than our original plan. Since our bench is practically finished, the we spent the day basically painting white around all the words and designs, waiting for it to dry and doing the same. We also went over some of the words in designs in their color to make them bolder. 

Daily hours: 3

Total project hours: 38

Day 11

Although we spent a long time sketching and designing what we wanted on the legs monday, Shannon had a really cool idea to do splatter paint! We decided this would be faster, easier, and a learning experience. Before we started we had to try and erase our sketches and then paint over it in white to look like it had looked a few days ago. We learned that splatter paint wasn't as easy as we thought. We had never done it before which was pretty obvious when we first started. Finding different techniques to splatter the paint took some trial and error, but we eventually figured it out and did 2 coats. 


Daily hours: 4

Total project hours: 35 

Day 10

Today we embarked on the legs of the bench. Obviously there are four legs of the bench, so we had to brainstorm what we wanted to incorporate on each bench. After repeated days of painting, we put aside the brushes and got back to the good old pencil. I forgot how much it sucked drawing on the bench because erasing is nearly impossible. We went back and forth for what seemed like forever with the designs. Finally we were able to sketch out what we wanted for each leg to be painted tomorrow. After the legs, we really just have some last minute touch ups, and then spraying the bench. It's looking as though we may be able to get started at the thrift store by the end of the week depending on what the woman I've been in contact with's schedule looks like! We've started to crank up the hours on the bench because we really want to finish soon! 

Daily hours: 4

Total project hours: 31