Last update, I informed you all that Laura and I had started painting. As I write this now, I am please to say that our project got finished, but not without a few bumps in the road. Ikea TripThe Tuesday after Thanksgiving break was the day of Laura and I's IKEA trip. We left directly after school and made our way to Fischer's. We went in to this trip thinking that we would spend about $1000-1500, which was within our budget. We wandered the wonderful halls of everyone's favorite Swedish home store, and picked out only the best items for our room. Laura's mom helped us keep a running total of the amount, and we were shocked to find out that after adding everything that we wanted, our total was just over $600!! We were so beyond ecstatic to have gotten a good deal of everything we needed. Later I purchased the additional items required at Target for about $200. FlooringSaturday, December 4th, we spend a solid eight hours in the Hope Center primarily installing flooring. Kylie, Waynie, and I also assembled our IKEA chair and desk. It was a difficult and time consuming process, but we did it well and it looks gorgeous!! Baseboards & Curtains & VanityWhile working on the vanity, we ran into multiple issues. Essentially, the plumbing in the bathroom was super weird and came out of the wall far off to the left, rather than at the standard placement. That was a pain to work with, so we ended up needing more days than we were allotted. Lori, our "supervisor", was super understanding of this, thankfully. We went into do baseboards and curtains Monday, December 13. Both went much quicker than expected and it was ultimately a very productive day! I was able to work on assembling decorations and other various things for the room during that day as well. Final Results!Our last day in the room was Tuesday, December 14. We finished up a few things with the baseboards and bathrooms, hung up mirrors and artwork, moved furniture into place, set up all the decorations, and deep cleaned the heck out of that room and bathroom. It was a very bittersweet and surreal day. All we've worked towards the entire semester was over. ReflectionThis project has been the hardest, most stressful thing I've ever taken part of, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I learned so much about myself, about tools, about God, and about life in general throughout this whole process. Throughout this whole process, we raised over $5000 from Amazon donations and monetary donations. We spent most of this money on things for the room, but the leftover money will be donated to the Hope Center. This project was such a blessing to me and I hope it will be a blessing for the residents who will be staying in this room.
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Since the last update, Laura and I have just been doing a lot and a lot of demo-ing. We have visited the Hope Center quite a few times to tape the room to prep it for paint. We also have had to speckle many areas and fix an issue of the old paint peeling up. We've received lots of help from Mr. Post on how to fix some of the existing issues. Laura and her brother Damon went in the other day after school to remove the sink and take out some screws. Where we're at right now our room is completely prepped for painting. Laura and I received some bad news about our project. While prepping for painting, Laura was informed that due to an influx of residents coming in, our deadline is being cut in half and we're only allotted five more visits to finish up this project. Due to this, Laura and I had to have a MAJOR phone call to figure this out and plan what we're going to do finish this project. After hours on the phone, we settled some dates that we are going to go in, what days males will be present, and then sent them in to our "supervisor" to get that approved. She approved them and gave us a thumbs up to go ahead and get going with this final leg. As a result of our shortened deadline, Laura and I got right to painting. We are going in every day this weekend to prime and apply two coats of paint. After fall break we will be going shopping and purchasing everything left on our list, and then installing flooring and all the rest of the good stuff.
So much has happened since our last blog post. Laura and I have worked so much on this project. We've focused a lot on fundraising so that we can get the ball rolling on our other projects. To fundraise, Laura drafted a letter of intent while I was working on our Amazon wishlist. I went and picked up a tax write off form from the Hope Center. We started with calling different businesses, such as Needlers, Brew 52, Gettinger's, and New Pal Hardware. Some were successes, some were busts. With the businesses that seemed interesting, I dropped off our letter of intent and the tax write off form. If the businesses didn't follow up with us directly, Laura and I called them back to follow up and all the one's we followed up with donated! We also reached out to family and the community and that gathered even more donations! We had reached enough funds to where we could buy the floors, but first we had to survey the situation, get measurements, and prep the floors. We went in during a long day and tried to scrub the leftover glue residue off the floor and remove the random screws in the floor. We were overall success minus a few odd screws. After cleaning the floor we started planning our trip to go buy floors. We went the other day to Lowe's and purchased a beautiful wood flooring. We also bought a transition piece, paint primer, and the foam rollers. Lowe's gave us a 50% discount on our ENTIRE purchase, so our total was $432.08. Laura and I were planning on splitting the payment, her using cash from relatives and I using Apple Pay since the donated money is in my mom's account, but Lowe's didn't have Apple Pay so that was a bust. While we were paying, Laura handed the cashier the envelope that held $300, but he stopped us and told us that we actually had $400 in the envelope. Laura and I were shocked and realized that the envelope also included the money from Needlers. All Laura had to pay with her credit card was $32, and the craziest thing happened. Laura and I were in her car, calling her mom to let her know the good news and when Laura got to the part where we had to pay only $32 on her card, her mom stopped her and said "Laura, your cousin just donated $35". That means that we didn't have to do any money exchanges to pay back to Laura and that we had almost the exact amount left over. That was such a God moment and the Lord providing for the flooring. We dropped off the flooring and painting supplies to our room and plan to get flooring and painting done by Thanksgiving Break!
In my last update, I touched on the steps Laura and I took to start planning our project. Since that update, we have taken a multitude of steps to further our project. We started by visiting the Hope Center to claim our room. We surveyed several rooms and after going back and forth, we decided on room 1402. While 1402 was our best bet, that does not mean that it is perfect by any means. The carpet is very badly stained, there's no a/c unit, and the wall color and decorations are outdated. We are going to have to redo most, if not all, of the room. Due to the high expenses of everything we are going to have to replace, Laura and I came up with some ideas to fundraise. We sent out an Amazon wishlist filled with some of the smaller/more affordable items and are currently spreading that throughout the community. Another thing Laura and I have done is we took a small-scale roadtrip during our block day. We drove to the glorious land of Southport and visited Home Depot, Lowe's, and Menard's. Out of these three stores, we only had luck at Lowe's. Lowe's offered us 50% off of our flooring, which would end up being about $450-500. While we were in Southport, we of course had to stop at Chick-fil-a. After our pit-stop, we headed back to Rick Short Flooring in New Pal. He offered us a deal of $1.07 per square foot, but since we would have to add transition pieces and the floor was in a less ideal color, we decided to go with Lowe's. Another thing Laura and I have been working on is the decoration of the room. We are leaning towards an earthy and bright feel for our room. We are currently planning doing sage green and cream/off-white walls with taupe accents throughout the room. We were originally going to make a faux-headboard by painting a taupe arch over the beds, but Mrs. Hardin said that she hated that. After long, hard thought about Mrs. Hardin's critique, we decided that she was right. After telling her this news, she offered to help us make a headboard. Currently we are thinking of making the headboards out of shiplap that has been painted white, due to it's appealing look and low dollar amount.
Laura and I first signed up for the service learning class offered by our school and we weren't sure what to expect, but it became evident that we should do a project at the Hope Center. Our passions and beliefs align perfectly with everything the Hope Center is so it made the most sense for us. When we first started to brainstorm, we were thinking that we could do a district donation drive, but as we developed that idea, the more we realized that this project was getting too big and too many moving parts. It just wouldn't be manageable or achievable. So we shifted our thinking and decided to focus on an already existing project at the Hope Center: Adopt-A-Room. Adopt-A-Room intel redecorating, redoing, and refurnishing one of the rooms at the Hope Center for a woman to stay in when she comes to the facility. Right now we are in the process of gathering funds, supplies, and everything else necessary to get this process going.
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AuthorHello, my name is Sadie Miller. I am a senior at New Palestine High School. I'm doing this project at the Hope Center for Mr. Large's Service Learning Class. My goal with this to project is to make a difference in someone else's life and to do something bigger than myself. I love coffee, reading, singing, and petting dogs. |