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: