Story Frame by Madeline Youmans, ‘21
Monday, February 12th was Project Vine Work Day: the day where the Project Vine family—students and staff together—did a few things to make our space more welcoming and comfortable.
According to Jonathan Chivers, ’21, “A couple of weeks in advance, to get ready for work day, we had a meeting. We talked about what we would do and we collected the items we needed to complete our projects.”
Right before the day actually started, everyone met and discussed the plans for the day. As Shavin Curtis, ’21, noted, “Miss Fletcher gave us a speech of motivation, getting us to be a part of the Project Vine family and treating the space as our home.”
The groups and jobs were presented, and people decided which job they preferred. A group of people went and got a table and a few chairs from Dani’s van. We traced the Project Vine logo on the table to wood burn it in. Some people were in the hallway tracing and painting vines to spread out through our community. Others were creating a billboard to showcase the calendar days.
Josh Dix, ’21, said the following about Work Day: “On work day, when I got to class and walked in people were painting and burning the table. There was food and chips and drinks. Someone brought a big dog. People were cleaning up and organizing. There was a speech that I sadly missed but I heard that it was a great speech.”
Josh Brown, ’21, said that “we as a class painted the Project Vine sign at the main door. We painted leaves with a bunch of different colors, like purple, green, and yellow.”
“During the work day, many people did many different things. Some painted the walls whilst others put new stickers on the Chromebooks. Others took down the memorial [to the late Jake Baird, ‘18] because it was beginning to get hard to see and getting torn up via the rain,” said Robert Goodale, ’21.
Nate Sawyer, ’21, commented that “importantly, we took down the temporary memorial for Jake and discussed what we were put there." The group did work together to clear the temporary memorial, which was difficult but was part of growing and moving forward. Nate also noted that "we also had a fun pizza party with chips and lemonade. It was also an adventure to get the wood burners so we could burn the emblem into the table.…all around it was a fun time.”
Students were asked after the work day why they thought we have this as an annual tradition in the program. Lohanna De Oliveira, ’21 said, “we are making Project Vine our own, since we call the Project Vine Suite our home for the 6 hours 5 times a week that we are here.” Josh Brown, ’21 commented “I think Project Vine has an annual work day to make the place look better.” His classmate, Tristan Blair, ’21, said “The point of work day was to really clean up our area. The point was to really improve our work space and personalize it. Also, the point was to collaborate on making our workplace better and improved.”
Nick Lytle, ’21 summed up the value of the work day, saying “Project Vine does this every year so we can become a family and know that the way the Project Vine hall looks is because of us.”
Reflecting on the space and the work day afterward, Madeline Youmans, ’21, commented “It feels more at home now. It’s a comfortable place to learn.”
*A note from the Project Vine staff: Thank you to everyone who helped make this year’s work day wonderful! Work Day is a chance for students to personalize and show ownership over their space in a way not always afforded in public spaces, and we believe it’s a big part of how our community keeps growing.
Please feel free to come by and check out the improvements to our space!
**This article, like much of our blog content, was written by many program members, compiled by English teacher Dani Charbonneau Fletcher, and uses a story frame provided by a student, in this case our own superstar freshmen, Madeline Youmans. Freshmen were asked as a writing assignment to describe the events of our Work Day in the form of a blog post. Their own words from that assignment are edited together here to form this story. This type of authentic reflection on our program and on what we learn is at the heart of Project Vine.
Monday, February 12th was Project Vine Work Day: the day where the Project Vine family—students and staff together—did a few things to make our space more welcoming and comfortable.
According to Jonathan Chivers, ’21, “A couple of weeks in advance, to get ready for work day, we had a meeting. We talked about what we would do and we collected the items we needed to complete our projects.”
Right before the day actually started, everyone met and discussed the plans for the day. As Shavin Curtis, ’21, noted, “Miss Fletcher gave us a speech of motivation, getting us to be a part of the Project Vine family and treating the space as our home.”
The groups and jobs were presented, and people decided which job they preferred. A group of people went and got a table and a few chairs from Dani’s van. We traced the Project Vine logo on the table to wood burn it in. Some people were in the hallway tracing and painting vines to spread out through our community. Others were creating a billboard to showcase the calendar days.
Josh Dix, ’21, said the following about Work Day: “On work day, when I got to class and walked in people were painting and burning the table. There was food and chips and drinks. Someone brought a big dog. People were cleaning up and organizing. There was a speech that I sadly missed but I heard that it was a great speech.”
Josh Brown, ’21, said that “we as a class painted the Project Vine sign at the main door. We painted leaves with a bunch of different colors, like purple, green, and yellow.”
“During the work day, many people did many different things. Some painted the walls whilst others put new stickers on the Chromebooks. Others took down the memorial [to the late Jake Baird, ‘18] because it was beginning to get hard to see and getting torn up via the rain,” said Robert Goodale, ’21.
Nate Sawyer, ’21, commented that “importantly, we took down the temporary memorial for Jake and discussed what we were put there." The group did work together to clear the temporary memorial, which was difficult but was part of growing and moving forward. Nate also noted that "we also had a fun pizza party with chips and lemonade. It was also an adventure to get the wood burners so we could burn the emblem into the table.…all around it was a fun time.”
Students were asked after the work day why they thought we have this as an annual tradition in the program. Lohanna De Oliveira, ’21 said, “we are making Project Vine our own, since we call the Project Vine Suite our home for the 6 hours 5 times a week that we are here.” Josh Brown, ’21 commented “I think Project Vine has an annual work day to make the place look better.” His classmate, Tristan Blair, ’21, said “The point of work day was to really clean up our area. The point was to really improve our work space and personalize it. Also, the point was to collaborate on making our workplace better and improved.”
Nick Lytle, ’21 summed up the value of the work day, saying “Project Vine does this every year so we can become a family and know that the way the Project Vine hall looks is because of us.”
Reflecting on the space and the work day afterward, Madeline Youmans, ’21, commented “It feels more at home now. It’s a comfortable place to learn.”
*A note from the Project Vine staff: Thank you to everyone who helped make this year’s work day wonderful! Work Day is a chance for students to personalize and show ownership over their space in a way not always afforded in public spaces, and we believe it’s a big part of how our community keeps growing.
Please feel free to come by and check out the improvements to our space!
**This article, like much of our blog content, was written by many program members, compiled by English teacher Dani Charbonneau Fletcher, and uses a story frame provided by a student, in this case our own superstar freshmen, Madeline Youmans. Freshmen were asked as a writing assignment to describe the events of our Work Day in the form of a blog post. Their own words from that assignment are edited together here to form this story. This type of authentic reflection on our program and on what we learn is at the heart of Project Vine.