Project Change

Kiddie Karnival

We decided for our first challenge we wanted to work with an organization that was not as well known to us, but still makes a big impact.  We decided that Spofford Home was the perfect choice.  It was established in 1916 as a residential treatment center for emotionally troubled children.  Currently, it is home to 49 children ages 4 through 12 who have suffered physical and/or sexual abuse, neglect, or have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder.  In addition to residential care, the home offers family and group therapy, school-based care management, day camp, and various counseling programs.

Knowing that these kids have been through a lot in their short lives, team Black & Veatch, in conjunction with Medix Staffing Solutions, decided to bring them a carnival to infuse some happiness into their world! The team wanted to pay it forward BIG, not only by bringing the children a carnival but also teaching them how to pay it forward.

Three separate spaces were decorated with balloons, banners, and more to give the center a carnival-type feel.  At their first stop, the kids had a blast playing games from monkey bean bag toss to elephant ring toss to an inflatable soccer goal.  The second location offered face painting from the fabulous Kristi Darby, Pigment Pie face painter, who adorned them with everything from a princess crown to a shark attacking their eye ball to a full on beard and mustache!  In room 3, they were treated to popcorn and wild cherry slushies while the team crazied their hair with colored spray paint, sparkles, snakes, butterflies, and even wiggly eyes!

We wanted to leave the kids with two important thoughts: a special fun memory at a time when they needed some extra happiness in their lives; and the desire to pay it forward and feel the need to help others. To preserve the memory, they ended the carnival with a photo booth and a handmade carnival frame that they could keep.

We also read the children “One Smile”, a story about how one smile can start a chain reaction and change a person's life. The kids then decorated cards to send to patients at Children's Mercy Hospital, learning that they can help others with something as simple as a card.  The kids definitely learned the importance of paying it forward and even shared stories of how they have helped others in the past. And our team was reminded of a quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, that is to have succeeded”.

Special thanks to Kristi Darbi of Pigment Pie face painting for your awesome face painting!  You really made the day for the kids, and for those of us who were just as excited to get our faces painted! :-)

Also, special thanks to Medix Staffing Solutions for your contributions and manpower!

Little Green Thumbs

For our final project, we decided to work with Kids TLC, a home for children that have been abused, abandoned, neglected, or are homeless. They provide many services to these children to make them feel a part of their community, and we wanted to go and be a part of their community! We wanted to ‘get dirty’, as well as brighten up the place, so we set out to create a mural of their logo growing into a butterfly. Our team and the kids used all of our thumbprints and handprints together to create a paint-by-numbers (or in this case, thumbs!) design, and definitely got dirty in the process! This mural theme perfectly illustrated TLC Kids’ motto: “Transforming Lives in Crisis”. We also got dirty again, used our little green thumbs, and did some weeding and planted flowers by their main sign to welcome visitors. It was perfect timing as they were having a ground-breaking party for a new building on the campus soon! Of course, our team can’t have a challenge without some good food, so we got dirty a third time and enjoyed a snack of “dirt and worms” (also known as, chocolate pudding with Oreo cookie crumbs and gummy worms)! Our hope was with some flowers, some dirt and worms, and a splatter of paint, we could bring a little sunshine to the kids at TLC!   

World Book Night

For our bonus challenge, we decided to participate in World Book Night. World Book Night is an annual celebration that is designed to spread the love of reading and books. This year, it was on April 23, 2012. People around the U.S. sign up to give books, and if they are selected, they are given 20 books to give to the organization or individuals of their choice. It began in the U.K., and this was the first year for the U.S. Seventeen people on our team signed up to give books, and 5 of the 17 of us were selected. In addition to our 100 free books, we also purchased books from Scholastic (an added bonus of over 600 points for the teacher we ordered through!) and various bookstores to get our total of giveaways up to 340 books! The World Book Night books were, for the most part, only adult books, so we decided to spread the love even further and purchased mostly teen and kids books. On April 23rd, all 17 of us spread out and delivered our books all over the metro to: Ozanam, Sunflower House, Reach Out and Read, Goodwill, Safehome, Armour Oaks Senior Living Community, Villa St. Joseph, Hope House, City Union Mission, Spofford Home, Kids TLC, Cherith Brook, Johnson County Christmas Bureau, Lifeskills Management Center, Brighton Gardens Assisted Living, and ACES Alternative School (in Maryville, MO). We really felt that this project epitomized what Project Change stands for- truly reaching as many lives as possible. 

If You Give a Child a Book

Operation Breakthrough is a non-profit childcare program that cares for over 600 children on a daily basis. 25% of the children are homeless or near homeless, and about 25% of their children are in foster care or other placements. The Black & Veatch team felt that this was a great place to start our Project Change challenges to show these kids that they are loved and thought about on a daily basis.

Our goal was to collect gently used books to give to Operation Breakthrough’s library. We set a goal of collecting 500 books, and smashed this goal with 1,081 books!

Once we collected the books, we selected classic favorites to record on CD. Professionals all across the office volunteered to read the books, which made for some very entertaining recordings! One team member even developed a method of inserting a chime so the kids would know when to turn the page. We collected several gently used CD players and 40 sets of headphones to donate along with the book recordings. Our hope is that these recordings will entertain the children while they develop their reading skills, and show them that someone cares about them every time they listen to our recordings.

Our team visited Operation Breakthrough and read the classic children’s book,If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Following the book reading, we created personalized bookmarks with the kids. Several of our crafty professionals donated an exciting array of gel markers, patterned brads, glitter stickers, and more!The children loved decorating the bookmarks and some of the faces of the volunteers with the stickers!  With over 1,000 books to read, the kids are sure to get good use out of their bookmarks!

The children of Operation Breakthrough had a great deal of anticipation for the final component and could hardly wait to decorate sugar cookiesafter reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Best of Bernadette’s Cakes and Catering donated heart-shaped cookies and frosting, and a team member donated countless containers of sprinkles, sugar glitter, and decorations. There were some very creative cookies, but none of them lasted very long; shouts for "one more please, one more please!" were heard throughout Operation Breakthrough! 

Good Eats at Good Shepherd

Devoted to David

Our good friend at Black & Veatch, Kim, was the inspiration behind our project with Community of the Good Shepherd, a residential community for developmentally disabled adults.  Her brother David lives in the Good Shepherd community.  He is truly the light of her life; he loves spending time with Kim at her house and when he doesn’t see her, he looks forward to her phone calls to ask how his day was.  (As someone who sits two cubicles away from her, I can attest to how much he loves to tell her everything he ate that day and how good it was!)  Her commitment and devotion to her brother inspired us to commit our time to Good Shepherd.

(Kim and David are pictured in the 1st picture.)

An Appetite for Appliances

Kim always told us about how badly her brother David's house needed a new refrigerator and freezer, so that is what we set out to accomplish.  We held a hot breakfast sale with egg casseroles, cinnamon rolls, biscuits and gravy, and more at work.  We had over 20 people cooking and baking to make this bake sale our biggest success ever at Black & Veatch.  Our co-workers know Kim and her love for her brother, and were inspired to donate, and we made over $900 in donations!  With more help from Black & Veatch, we purchased a much needed refrigerator and freezer.  We filled the refrigerator and freezer with fun treats like popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, and more!

Spaghetti Supper

To celebrate the new appliances, our team headed over to Good Shepherd with some of our families.  We made baked spaghetti, breadsticks, and green beans ahead of time and all had a great dinner with the residents of David’s house.

B-I-N-G-O!

After dinner we had a layered pudding dessert and played Bingo!  We brought prizes of oatmeal cream pies and chocolate cupcakes, which made for a competitive Bingo game!  Larry (pictured in the 2nd picture) knew the rules of Bingo backwards and forwards.  He made sure to let everyone know if it was time to clear the cards or not.  Also, if you called Bingo too early in the game, shouts of “Cheater!” were heard shortly after, but when the Bingo was confirmed, everyone clapped and cheered the winner on! 

After we left Good Shepherd, it was evident to our team that while the appliances were a definite need, the personal interaction was an even bigger need.  We all left feeling great about the time we had spent there, and knowing that we would not soon forget Debbie (pictured in the 4th picture) and her many, many fudge pops or Larry and his Bingo rules or Mike (pictured in the 3rd picture) and his hugs.   

(Many, many thanks to BRS Photography for his beautiful photographs!)

Calendar Cuties

For our third challenge, we paired up with Animal Haven. Animal Haven had always wanted to do a calendar, but didn’t necessarily have the resources to do one. This is where we came in. We held a jeans day where our co-workers could pay $5 to wear jeans, and we made $400 to print the first round of calendars! The first 35 to sign up also received a special treat of people-puppy chow- yum! We held a pet fashion shoot at Animal Haven and BRS Photography volunteered to take the photos for us, so we took 6 cat pictures and 12 dog pictures. From there, we designed an 18-month calendar. Each month features an animal from Animal Haven, along with their profile. We’ve also included gardening tips for the Midwest, to go along with the “Grow Change- Create Hope” theme of this challenge. As an added bonus, we’ve also included a list of plants that can be harmful for animals, so that you can keep your pets safe at home. The calendar is compact at 4”x5” and fits in a CD case, for a convenient desktop display. This also makes it easy to slip out some of the months, for a longer selling time. We will be selling the calendars at KC Power & Light District's Family Fun Days' Summer Safari on Saturday, June 18th from 11am to 3pm, so come out and see us and help us support Animal Haven!

Thanks again to BRS Photography for his cool, calm, collected, not to mention wonderful photography skills at a hectic photo shoot!