ReStart Group Project

Project Change teams got an early chance to help out and get involved in the community this past Saturday at ReStart in downtown KC. Spaces/Burns & Mac provided almost a dozen volunteers to help put together backpacks full of items for teens and baskets for families for those in need around KC. These teens don't have a lot to call their own but this backpack will be all theirs! The baskets were also filled with necessities for the families that we tend to take for granted. Additionally, notes of encouragement, toiletries and other goodies were included. We also had the opportunity to serve a holiday meal to the families and help clean up at ReStart. There were so many volunteeers there that all of the tasks were done so fast they had to find more things for us to do!

Partner Organizations Chosen for Challenges!

Things are getting exciting! Woo-woooot! We're laying all the groundwork right now so we can start rolling on these projects.

Challenge 1:
Create Change without $change$ - February
A wise man once said, mo' money mo' problems. Well we have no money, and no problems! For February's challenge we are teaming up with the Down Syndrome Guild of KC. One thing we're looking into is helping with some programming to entertain and hang out with these wonderful kids. A meeting with DSG tomorrow should help give us some more ideas of ways we can help.

Challenge 2:
See-A-Need -> Fill-A-Need - March
Ever heard of Children's TLC? Shazam! Now you have! Spaces Inc. is spearheading this effort to help make this awesome place even awesomer (yep I just made up a word), and hopefully a bit more warm and inviting for the kids, parents and families. We're also looking into a specialized bike for kids with disabilities. Everyone at TLC is so passionate, and it's contagious! But in a good way, not like the chicken pox.

Challenge 3:
Grow Change -> Create Hope – April
For Challenge 3 we have decided to work with Community of the Good Shepherd and help them with a large community garden among other things. Hopefully this will give the adult residents a place to get their hands dirty while also complementing their diet with some fresh vegetables. Who doesn't like fresh vegetables?? Small children for one, but they'll grow to love them someday!

Bonus Challenge - A Door too Far - May-???
Operation Breakthrough
Project Change Bonus Edition!!! We just can't get enough of Operation Breakthrough; what a great organization. We're excited to continue our work and maintenance on the outdoor classroom at Operation Breakthrough. This summer may also serve as a great opportunity to have all the kids and their families gather in the classroom for a little summer bbq and party! I call not being the grillmaster!

Challenge Projects Almost Chosen!

The Spaces/Burns & Mac team met after the PC Kickoff Meeting and decided on the 3 (err...4) groups we wanted to work with, and projects we have in mind. There were too many great groups to chose from for the given challenges, so in addition to doing our 3 Team projects, we also decided to do a 4th to continue our work with Operation Breakthrough! Project leaders for the other 3 challenges have been assigned and are now working with the beneficiary groups to see what we can do to help them. The project scopes will be narrowed at the next meeting, and more information will be available for the Lunch and Learn (informational) meeting at Burns & Mac Monday December 6th. The wheels of Change are turning!

Project Change Team Expo & Kick-Off

This event is a GREAT WAY to kick off the 2011 Challenge Event! We will have inspirational guest speakers and about 20 charitable organizations explaining how they impact the community and how your team could help. Food and drink provided.

When: November 2nd 2010, 5:30-7:30p.m.
Where: Eden Alley -707 W 47th St, Kansas City, MO

http://www.projectchange-kc.org/news/rsvp-team-expo-and-kick-event

2011 Challenges Arrive Early!

We just got the three different challenges for 2011! Great challenges call for great ideas, and we’re ready to start brainstorming. Still lots of time before our first challenge submission, but it’s time to spread the word and get people thinking and talking. Write down any idea you have, no matter how big, small, far-fetched, lofty, or off the wall it may be! The fourth (group) challenge will occur in May and is to be announced at the kick-off party November 2nd at Eden Alley on the Plaza.

Challenge One
Create Change without $change$ - Submission due by or before February 18, 2011.
No Money? NO PROBLEM! This project is meant to address the ongoing speed bump that keeps people from getting involved - CASH! Your team will be challenged to put your creativity to the test and leave your wallets at home! No need to purchase items, ask for money or use your own, there are many opportunities to repurpose existing items, donate your time, spend time with someone, build relationships and connect to make a difference. Let's shed that roadblock and a little light on new ways to get involved at the same time!

Challenge Two
See-A-Need -> Fill-A-Need - Submission due by or before March 25th, 2011
Making a difference can be simple! During this project, you are challenged to work together with your selected benefiting organization to identify a basic need. Your team will provide comfort by finding a creative way to reach across the gap and work together to fill it!

Challenge Three
Grow Change -> Create Hope – Submission due by or before April 29th, 2011
During your final project we challenge you to choose something that will continue to make an impact after you leave. This could mean SO many things! Plant a tree or community garden, teach someone to read, restore, repurpose or create an item that will continue to aid someone in your community or educate others about a local need and grow change beyond Project Change!

Move Life Forward at Operation Breakthrough

The Outdoor Classroom is looking GREAT!

Operation Breakthrough provides daily care and education to more than 600 children ages 6 weeks to 15 years, from working‐poor families. In addition, they offer a broad range of social services for the children and their families, nearly all of which are headed by single women. Burns & McDonnell and Spaces, Inc. helped design and begin renovation of an existing empty lot into an Outdoor Classroom for the Operation Breakthrough children in Spring 2009. In 2010, some work still remained to complete the vision.

Over four workdays in April, May, and June, teams of volunteers from Burns & McDonnell and Spaces, Inc. tore out and replaced weather-worn portions of a previously installed perimeter fence, scraped old paint off the fence, applied two brand new coats of paint to the fence, added a brick border to the existing path, completed new brick and gravel paths, dug a dozen post holes, installed a new wooden entryway, and added fence posts for future expansion of the unique door fence. The work that was completed this year moved the Outdoor Classroom at Operation Breakthrough several steps closer to completion. It’s great to see that the classroom is already providing a safe, engaging, and nourishing outdoor space for urban youth to immerse their senses in natural surroundings. Further work by the Burns & McDonnell and Spaces, Inc. team at the Outdoor Classroom is planned in 2011 to make this positive experience for the children even better.

2010 - Bring Change to Hope House

The Team Ready To Work!

With over 13,000 occupants since 1995, Hope House has brought “hope” to many women and children escaping domestic violence, but this month the facility itself was in need of hope. Home to up to 52 women and children at a time, the Independence shelter was experiencing problems with infestations and heavy wear.

The weekend of February 6th marked the challenge in which volunteers came together to rehab the living quarters within the shelter. The team removed old furniture, carpet and base boards, then cleaned the rooms, put on a fresh coat of paint and laid new ceramic tile in six separate rooms. “This team completed work in two days that would have taken us at least six weeks,” said Gary Ashmore, Hope House Facility Manager. By implementing these changes in two days, the Project Change team enabled Hope House to keep its facilities open to as many survivors as possible during the renovation period. In 2009, 754 women and 474 children found shelter at Hope House; a total of 35,000 bed nights. For 337 nights out of the year the shelter was full. When the rooms are closed for rehabilitation, they can’t be used. The collaboration of our team provided shelter and hope to some of the region’s most vulnerable families by keeping the beds open and revitalizing six living spaces for those most in need.

Pulling off some old carpet

2010 Intro

So we start again! The 2010 project themes (challenges) have been released. This year things are going to change a bit, instead of having 4 different events during Feb-May, we’ll be having 3 monthly events and the last month (May) will be a group event in which all the teams and community members will be participating.

The 3 themes for this year are: People, Places and Things. They are VERY broad therefore we’ll be able to do just about anything!

We met up and decided what each event will be so here are the three organizations we’ll be working with:

• Hope House
• Reach Out and Read (ROR)
• Operation Breakthrough

The final project in May, we’ll get to help improve the Ivanhoe Park. To find out more details on any of these events please continue to visit our blog or contact Laura Mersmann at lmersmann@burnsmcd.com or Will Kirby at wkirby@burnsmcd.com

2009 Wrap-Up

The ending of 2008 and beginning of 2009 was a crazy time for the B&M team. Even though we started this adventure as just Burns & Mac, we teamed up with Spaces Inc. and with the help we tackled the 4 month projects. We had some good days and some bad, but overall we succeeded and enjoyed the time that we spent making burritos, sewing blankets, getting our hands dirty at Operation Breakthrough and working with the kids. At the awards ceremony our team tied for 2nd place. It’s been a great year and we’ll be back for 2010. Stay tuned for what 2010 will bring to Project Change.

Nurture The Children

The Burns & McDonnell and Spaces, Inc. Team worked with Operation Breakthrough to accomplish our fourth challenge, “Nurture the Children”.

We have been busy constructing the Outdoor Classroom for the Operation Breakthrough children throughout March, April and May. It was a natural transition to develop a curriculum to assist the professional personnel at Operation Breakthrough with their plans to nurture and engage the children in this environmental classroom. The curriculum includes lessons that will provide learning materials for all seasons and is sustainable in its philosophy to bring education to hundreds of children year after year. It includes workbooks, teaching guides, books and tool kits for hands on experiences. This took us two months to develop but will last forever. Each workbook consists of twelve areas in the garden that were constructed for the instructor and child to work within. The workbooks contain questions that the children answer to help in their educational process. There is the Digging Area for exploring soil, the Art Area for creativity, the Butterfly Garden and Bird Watching Area for observing, the Stage Area for expression, the Sand Area for touching, the Vegetable Area for sight and taste, the Wind Area for creativity and touching, the Rain Garden for environmental education, the Prairie Restoration Area for them to care for, the Storybook Nook for independent or shared reading, and the Hippo Area for physical education.


Within each of these venues we provided various reading books to relate the visual experience to the written education and direction. The tool kits include a clipboard, a magnifying glass, binoculars, measuring tape, and note pad assisting with the hands-on and experimental parts of the lessons. The curriculum also includes classroom activities for both the child and instructor to experience and learn from within the individual venues. These activities include games, science projects and other experiences for the ultimate, five-sense, learning environment. Each lesson plan follows the State of Missouri School Standards to bring a secured, solid foundation of learning for Operation Breakthrough, its teachers, children and their families and caregivers.

Save the Planet

Team Burns & Mac and Spaces Inc. Volunteers!

The Burns & McDonnell and Spaces team worked for Operation Breakthrough to plant the seeds of an engaging and nourishing outdoor space for urban youth. The vision is a natural, restorative oasis amidst the asphalt jungle of the city's urban core. The Outdoor Classroom will be a safe place where children can immerse their senses in natural surroundings.

Our plans for the outdoor classroom

Throughout the month of April over 50 volunteers came together to produce a site layout, build a fence out of recycled doors, and start laying the groundwork for an outdoor oasis for the children of Operation Breakthrough. Burns & McDonnell and Spaces worked closely with Operation Breakthrough to develop a vision for the site. The site plan includes features to stimulate all of the senses. A vegetable garden, a sound garden, butterfly garden, toddler area, rain garden, and a center stage are just a few features of the site plan. Each piece can be completed individually as more volunteers and supporters come on board.

The fence is the most important piece of the site as it provides a safe barrier from the outside world. In an effort to use recycled materials the fence was constructed of discarded doors. Seldom Found Architecturals donated 100 beautiful used doors. Turner Construction provided skilled labor by digging all of the post holes. Paint was provided by Habitat For Humanity, Kansas City Restore. Volunteers worked during three Saturdays to wash and paint each door, place each post, and hang the doors.

Here's a section of the final product:

Reach Out and Read

We kicked off our 2010 season by teaming up with Spaces to help an organization called Reach Out and Read (ROR). ROR is a program that works with doctors to promote youth literacy. To learn more about this program, please visit http://www.reachoutandread.org/.

Our mission was to revitalize several ROR locations in Kansas City - Sam Rodgers Health Center, Swope Parkway Health Center, and Mercy and Truth Health Clinic. We came up with different ways to improve the children's waiting areas, which included building new bookshelves, installing new carpet, designing new ROR posters, and painting a once-blank wall.

By the end of the project, we had three brand new waiting areas. We are hoping that this helps the kids get excited about reading. And who knows.. maybe they'll look forward to going to the doctor's office!