Testing out Materials

On Sunday (7/20), I brought all the materials that I received from SCRAP, The Naked Sheep Knit Shop, Mimosa Studios, and Collage to the Goose Hollow Homeless Family Shelter in downtown Portland.

The purpose of my visit was to test out the majority of the materials to evaluate my activities. The main activities that I had the kids tried out involved the ceramic tiles from Mimosa Studios; markers and other writing utensils from SCRAP; and yarn from The Naked Sheep Knit Shop.

Overall, I think the visit went very well. There were five pre-school age (3-5 years old) girls there who did most of the "testing out." I brought out the ceramic paints, but they were more interested in drawing on the tiles with markers. They were especially excited that they had a piece of their artwork that they could take with them. I can imagine that a lot of the crafts they make do not last long, which explains their wonder and excitement at receiving their tiles.

This showed me that perhaps the activities should be simpler, since most of the kids in the shelter are about 3-5 years old. I will probably alter some of the activities to fit these observations. Of course, I will still include in more complex activities such as collaging for the older kids.

The next time I visit on August 2nd, I hope to test out the collaging materials from Collage if there are any older kids there. I will also try again with the ceramic tiles from Mimosa Studios to see if the paints are necessary or if the kids are satiated with drawing on them with markers.

Here I have attached a few pictures of the children drawing on their tiles (with permission, of course).

Materials and Sponsors

After several months of cold-calling and emailing local Portland crafts stores for donations, yesterday I finally picked up the first batch of - hopefully - many supply donations.

This round's supplies were provided by SCRAP (MLKJ Blvd), Collage (Alberta St), Mimosa Studios (Alberta St), and The Naked Sheep Knit Shop (Killingsworth St).  SCRAP gave $20 in store credit. Collage provided many magazines, sponges, scissors, glue and paper. Mimosa Studios supplied ceramic tiles, glaze, and brushes. The Naked Sheep Knit Shop equipped us with a generous amount of high-quality yarn.

I would like to say a huge thank you to all of these stores! We appreciate the donations very much and the kids will love them! I will upload pictures of them carrying out the activities on this blog.

I will be testing out several activities at the shelter on July 20th and on August 2nd to gain feedback on the activities. Throughout the next year, I will be gathering feedback from other volunteers at the shelter. Here, I have posted photos of the materials that the aforementioned stores have donated.

 Courtesy of Collage

 Courtesy of Mimosa Studios

Courtesy of SCRAP

Courtesy of The Naked Sheep Knit Shop

Feedback from Stores

Hello all,

Just wanted to provide an update to let you know that there are three stores that have replied to my donations requests so far: SCRAP, Collage, and Mimosa Studios. They are all pretty close to each other on the East side of Portland. I am going to contact the Sunset Key Club and have a few volunteers go and pick up the materials. I will post what the stores donated soon!

Best,
Sharon

Activities Book

Goose Hollow Activities Book

Activities Book Soon!

Hi all,

I just met with the shelter coordinator yesterday, since I am on spring break. We looked through the activities book together in person for the first time, and he loves it! I let him take a copy with him to show Brandi. I'm super excited - looks like we are in the final stretch for the book. I've already been contacting stores and finding people to pick up materials for me while I am gone at school. Looking forward to putting it all together and trying out the activities during the summer!

I will post the activities book soon - just want to make a few small revisions (sorry for the delay - I promise it will be soon).

An(other) Update

Hello everyone,

First off, happy 2014! I hope these past two months have been a great start to the new year. I know they have been great but incredibly busy for me.

Secondly, I apologize for the delay since my last post way back in December. However, I have been meeting with the program directors at Goose Hollow during every break, and have some big news... The activities book is now finished! I will attach a copy of the book soon. I still have a few minor layout and photo quality things to fix, so it may be in another few weeks.

Now I will turn my focus onto actually getting the materials required to carry out the activities. For this, I am soliciting local businesses and stores for craft materials such as paper, paints, markers, etc. If you live in the Portland area and know of any businesses/stores that would be willing to donate, I would love to know about them! You can email me suggestions at szhang@andover.edu.

As I will be out of town until June, I can only send electronic request letters to the businesses of my interest, so I would like to involve local key clubs at high schools. I would like them to follow up in person after I send an electronic solicitation to the stores and to pick up materials that stores may donate. If you know or are a part of any key club in the Portland area that would be interested in helping out, please don't hesitate to contact me at the email above. I really appreciate it!

Until the next update,

Sharon

An Update

Hello,

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving break (and Christmas to come)!

I have started creating the activities book, with feedback and tips from many people. I would especially like to thank Dr. Lopez-Morales, a counselor at my school, who has a degree in and extensive knowledge of child psychology. She has given me a lot of ideas on how to make the activities more engaging and thought provoking to raise the children's self-esteem levels.

For example, one activity for the kids could be collaging. However, instead of just allowing the kids to create aesthetically pleasing pieces, volunteers should ask the children to create a self-portrait collage of who they think they are and what they like. Then, they can ask the kids why they chose to incorporate a soccer ball or a puppy into their pieces. In this manner, the child will get an idea, even if it's subconscious, of who he or she truly is and what he or she enjoys. This self-awareness will ultimately aid them in developing more confidence.

Another concept Dr. Lopez-Morales mentioned which I will look up is "House-Tree-Person." According to Wikipedia, it is a "projective test designed to measure aspects of a person’s personality." I will look into it more, but my understanding is that we can ask the children to draw a house, tree and person and be able to recognize personality traits from the drawings. Not sure if we should implement this because volunteers aren't clinical psychologists, but maybe we can adapt it.