Ep. 205 Compassionate Makerspace Projects

Sunshine & Stories Episode 205: Compassionate Makerspace Projects

Episode Summary: 
Suzi Tonini chats with Carin Barrett, Teacher Librarian at Berthoud High School, about implementing compassionate makerspace projects that connect students with their community through service. Learn how Carin's students create items like fleece blankets, stuffed animals, birthday cards, and port pillows for organizations ranging from sex trafficking victim support groups to Meals on Wheels. Discover practical strategies for funding projects through Donors Choose, recruiting student volunteers, finding community partners, and balancing makerspace activities with everyday library responsibilities while building empathy and providing meaningful volunteer opportunities for students.

00:00 - Introduction
00:44 - Carin’s inspiration for compassionate making
02:29 - Carin’s first compassionate makerspace project
03:54 - Logistics: finding funding for materials and getting students involved   
09:53 - Strategies for learning about community needs/finding project ideas
15:00 - Tips for getting started with compassionate making
19:22 - Examples of student impact 

Resources:
Carin Barrett, Teacher Librarian at Berthoud High School: carin.barrett@tsd.org  

Compassionate Making Pinterest Board 

Donors Choose project examples:
Don’t Just Make, Make for Good!
Make More for Good!
Cards From the Heart
Serging Forward with Service 

Student Making that Makes a Difference, CCIRA presentation by Carin Barrett 

 Tell us what you think!
If you give us a listen, please let us know what you think by completing a short feedback survey for this episode.  

CSL projects like this one are funded in part by the Grants to States program administered by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the Colorado State Library, Institute of Museum and Library Services, or the U.S. Government.  

Transcript

Sunshine and Stories podcast transcript for Episode 205

[music] [00:06]  

Welcome to Sunshine and Stories. 

The podcast that shines a light on big ideas and bright moments in Colorado's public and school libraries. 

Brought to you by the Library Development team at the Colorado State Library. 

[00:19]  

Suzi: Hi, this is Suzi Tonini, School Library Consultant with the Colorado State Library. On today's episode of Sunshine and Stories, we'll be chatting about compassionate makerspace projects. I'm joined today by Carin Barrett, the school librarian at Berthoud High School in Thompson R2-J School District in Berthoud, Colorado. Carin, welcome to the podcast. 

Carin: Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:44]

Suzi: Absolutely. When I visited your library in April, I loved seeing students in action in your makerspace, and I'm so excited for listeners to learn more about it. So how did you first learn about compassionate makerspace projects? 

Carin: Well, years ago now, in probably 2016, on Twitter, I came across a librarian in New York, Gina Seymour, who was sharing some different projects that she was doing in her library that were related to that idea. And that's actually almost kind of her term for it, right? It's compassionate making. I always talked to the students about how even that concept of compassion being sort of just understanding what another person might be going through, or learning more about how other people operate or live. And she was just demonstrating some of the projects or sharing pictures of what her students had been doing. And I loved that idea. And it took maybe six months or a year for us to decide that we wanted to try something like that here, and so I kind of just started looking around or talking about it with our staff and the people at our school and actually sort of serendipitously ran into maybe a potential project we could do. So then it all sort of kind of started to come together a little better in the way of, like, how could this work? What could it look like? And at the time, I also had a very passionate and unbelievably capable library assistant in the way of what kinds of skills really lend itself to putting something like this in place, and so that opportunity for her to be able to, to get help, get this going, it probably would not have happened the way it did without her. 

[02:29]

Suzi: It sounds like the stars aligned. What was that first project? 

Carin: So there's a nonprofit down south in Colorado called Restoring Innocence or The Restore Innocence Project. And they had spoken recently at a staff member's church. And so it offered us an opportunity to kind of learn about them. They meet with the FBI at locations where they are trying to rescue victims of sex trafficking and when they are involved in those operations, they bring along blankets and stuffed animals for some of these victims because very often when they're rescued, they're naked, and so to offer them a blanket to cover themselves up and then also some kind of stuffed animal to just hold or sort of be a comfort while they might be being interviewed, or those kinds of things. And so such a powerful, like I said, in the way of that compassionate piece, understanding some of the things that are happening in the world. An experience that the students hopefully will never get anywhere near, but that they could do something about. And so I got in contact with the person who had spoken at the staff member's church and said, Hey, could we make some fleece blankets and stuffed elephants for you? And she said, Absolutely, and we were off and going. 

[03:54]

Suzi: Wow. Oh, that's so impactful. Can you kind of take us through almost like logistical side of that? So like with that particular project, what are those next steps? How do you how do you fund being able to purchase the materials and then how does it work on the student side, from telling them about the project, and to actually getting them into your maker space to start making. 

Carin: Sure, sure. So when we got started, we were also fortunate at that time to have a Donors Choose project funded for two sewing machines and then some of those consumables right, like thread and those kinds of things, but mainly tools: fabric cutting wheels, all of those sorts of pieces that we needed to actually sort of get going. And since then we've actually had four more Donors Choose projects funded over the course of the year, so that now we have a third sewing machine, a surger, materials for making cards. 

We've sort of used that as a way of building up the tool aspect of it. I was also fortunate in our district we have a foundation that allows us to do some fundraising online where people can just directly donate and then that money is put in an account that the teachers can use for some of those consumable things, so none of no tax money is ever used in any of this. And as we've gone along, either teachers or community members, different people have kind of been inspired or encouraged by this, and they also have contributed in different ways where just we end up with enough funds to purchase new fabric. A lot of our projects, if they end up in places like hospitals or those sorts of places, we don't want to be necessarily using things we don't know where they came from? Certainly we take donations if we can make sure that those are things that we can use. And then even our parent organization supports some things through Amazon wish lists and things like that, which is a place for me to get our endless need of thread and those kinds of items. In terms of recruiting students or putting this on their radar, when we got those donors that first Donors Choose projects funded, we tore apart an office, or it used to be an office where people kind of went to work, but we already all had other desks, and so we rearranged the whole thing to sort of be entirely dedicated to this activity. So we're fortunate in that way as well to have a space. And I went and presented to classes just about what we were doing and what the possibilities were with how they could choose to engage with it. We have open periods at my school where students are not assigned to a class and can either be in the library or be in our Commons area, a limited number of places, so that gave me an opportunity also to offer them something to do with their time that would also allow them to earn volunteer hours, which is a requirement in our school district. So there was sort of a benefit there. When I first presented to students about this, I also talked to them a lot about, well, this wouldn't be the reason they would choose to do it, certainly colleges and their other secondary options, they're interested in people who care about the world, who volunteer, who engage in service. And I had evidence of that through different articles that I showed the students about how recruiters and those sorts of people look for these things. And then also, I had evidence that I showed them that had to do with just coming in and volunteering and helping someone else can be a real stress reliever, and that maybe sometimes you know, if you are overwhelmed thinking about your homework and quizzes and this thing that you have to deal with and the sport after school, it might be better for you to just come in and do something for a while that helps someone else. 

And so that was sort of the way I presented it to them. And we have a number of avenues where we just promote what the current project is. And from their students really just drop in and we haven't had any trouble recruiting students to participate. 

Suzi: That's great. I love how you connect the dots for students on how much building that empathy impacts them in a positive way as well, and not only just their community. 

Carin: It has been really wonderful. We had a student graduate just this year who said that this really was something that changed their life, in the way of participating in this from freshman year all the way to senior year-- and just he became more and more invested in it over time, to the point where he was helping planned projects and run the actual space as something that he really wanted to spend part of his senior year doing. 

And so then there have been other students too, that just have learned to sew, and they have really taken off in that way, where they've gotten their own sewing machines at home and spent time doing something where then we're also teaching them potentially a hobby that is something they can leverage for other uses as well, that is just enjoyable. The number of projects we've done that really have been like Restore Innocence where it's something that again hopefully they'll never have to imagine, we worked with another organization that puts together birthing bags for mothers in Haiti, because they often have give birth out on their dirt floor. And so these birthing kits are, you know, they have a piece of plastic sheeting in them and a string to tie off the umbilical cord. 

Suzi: Oh wow. 

Carin: And so trying to promote sanitary births even again, something that the students really might not have to necessarily imagine in their own life circle. And then, of course, they made little baby hats and blankets to go and the kids as well. It's been it's been great to find different things where really, like I said, it does open, open that door to at least understanding there's lots going on in the world. 

[09:53]

Suzi: Are you at the point where organizations are seeking you out, or are there, do you have ways to be able to find out what are those community needs? And any recommendations for others who want to start putting feelers out for what needs might be in their own communities? 

Carin: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's been a mix of both and really just looking, you'll start to find ideas pretty immediately, even in in your own community. A great partnership we've developed that's actually pretty low entry as well and sort of an easy thing to do: our students have started to make birthday cards. They're blank inside and we just we get the paper as the materials and we use our Cricut. We have a Cricut that is helpful here, but you wouldn't need it and kind of build kits for the students to essentially assemble these sets of cards and we donate them to our local Meals on Wheels organization. 

And they send a birthday card to each of their clients that's homebound and receives meals from them. They go through hundreds of cards a year because of their growing client list. 

And again, sort of low entry, it's something that's really common in a community to have an organization like that. We also ended up connecting with our local essentially single parent support organization. Ours is called Project Self-Sufficiency, and they also I just approached them and said, Hey, would could we make some cards for you cause then you know, do you happen to do you work with your clients in this way? And they said sure, and we're excited to. We made 100 cards for them again pretty easily the way that we build the kids students make 14 cards at a time and it takes them maybe an hour. 

And so those kinds of places exist in most communities. There have also been places that I've just sort of cold-emailed that I knew of in one way or another. Years ago, I had heard a story on the radio about a homeless shelter in Washington, DC. with a special purpose called Joseph's House that takes in unhoused individuals who are terminally ill, to sort of provide a place for them. And I just wrote to an e-mail address I could find on their website and said, Hey, could we make some pillowcases for you? Because it's an easy pattern that students actually have a lot of fun with, the way it works out is really interesting. And they said sure. And so we did, and then it was maybe a year and a half later that a different person in the organization contacted me and said, You know, I heard that it was your school that made all these wonderful pillowcases for us. Would you make us some more? And so that has been the way that some of it has happened. I would say another great way is really just to kind of mine the Internet for some of these options. I use Pinterest very heavily for this, especially now. And you could use anything now because the the AI that's in there that is going to tune your feed and recommend things for you, is going to bring you more and more and more of it. When we first started this in 2017, that wasn't as common, but Pinterest definitely has been a place where I have found not only organizations to donate to, but then also of course a ton of different types of projects where if we're talking about making stuffed animals, which we also did that recently for an organization near us, that helps do forensic interviews with children who have been abused. And I said, hey, can we make stuffed animals for you? So by that point, we can make stuffed elephants. We can make stuffed llamas, we can and you know, so it's just about finding relatively beginner patterns for things that because there's a lot of organizations that could use stuffed animals. We reached out to our SRO. We I found a pattern online to make bears and I said hey, you know, is there anything in the Sheriff's Office that could be connected to this? And they have a victims advocacy group that goes out to different emergencies and meets with families and we made so many so many comfort bears for them out of just fleece and felt so students could kind of make them into sort of like character bears. So we ended up with superhero bears and career bears and like all the different bears. So I think too, it's the students end up being very creative with it. 

There's a lot of national organizations that even just Googling what kinds of organizations take donations that you can make would yield some results. So yeah, I've stumbled into a lot of it, I guess I would say, but it's also definitely not hard to find. I feel like it just now has become part of my behavior where the social media that I use and those kinds of things just shows it to me. And so then I can go forward with it somehow. 

[15:00]

Suzi: Wow. So thinking about other librarians who are interested in taking this on, what would be some of your tips and tricks? Best advice for how to also juggle everything that comes with managing a library while having compassionate maker space projects going on? 

Carin: Sure. That part is challenging. Absolutely. I think that looking into who you have in your student body that might be passionate about these kinds of things could potentially be a great way. 

To start, there's so many different structures in schools in the way of how students can help in you know that teacher aid kind of concept. Or something more than that where you might have students who already are expertly skilled at the kinds of things you would need to start and love to knit or crochet or those sorts of things, or can sew. Seeking those people out first and making a system where they can assist with this I would say isn't possibly a necessity. Again, the assistant that I had when that we first started this she's since retired and we've continued to balance it. This isn't a difficult thing to teach other people in the way of how it works and it's something frankly though too that we prioritize. 

Offering this to our students and having this place be what it is something that is important to our library. I don't think that we've lost sight of any of our other important services to students in providing this. But it is something that we certainly prioritize, but I think there's a lot of potential for finding help in your school and finding passionate groups. In the way of the other piece of getting started, librarians could also consider sort of something that we actually started afterwards, it's an interesting way of getting into this that doesn't necessarily require you to have the materials is looking for nonprofits in your community that students can continue to do something for, but it's with materials that that nonprofit already has. So I started a couple of years ago doing these activities. We call it Service to Go because they're kind of one or two day events, whereas the makerspace items are spread out over a month or so, usually, and we essentially oftentimes are doing maybe what we would call more clerical or assembly work for these nonprofits. But it's still such a powerful opportunity for students to know that they're helping someone again to get community service dollars. Many of these nonprofits have actually sent a representative to the school to present to the students, so we offer it every period over the course of two days. We're on an alternating block, so Periods 1 through 8 for two days, and a representative will talk for 10 or 15 minutes about that nonprofit and their work. And then the students engage in whatever that nonprofit needs. And we didn't really haven't provided very many of the materials for that, just the manpower, essentially the people power. A great example is we have a local organization that puts together weekend food bags for our students who might not have enough food on the weekends or who are food insecure and they came, and gave extremely powerful information to the students about what it does to come to school hungry and the kinds of things that that does to a student in the way of how they can learn and how they grow. And they needed all of these buttons for people to wear during their food drive. They purchased all the materials for the buttons we happen to have button makers, so that worked out, but a lot of libraries have button makers and those students made 400 buttons for that organization to be able to wear during their community drive. So there are easier tasks, but again kind of connect the students with these various nonprofits and what they do. So if you don't have a budget or you don't have a means of trying to raise money to get started with the making, there might even be a way of kind of getting started that way. 

I would say also, yeah, absolutely thinking about Donors Choose as an opportunity, looking at your parent organizations or just putting the idea out there, I think it can be surprising to people, the number of people who want to support something like this and want to give students the opportunity to do something like this. 

[19:22]

Suzi: Absolutely. There's so many benefits that I see for students. Are there any students that really stick out to you, where there was a story that that just keeps you going? But I just, you know, I was really touched by seeing a student teaching another student how to use a sewing machine when I was there, but just thinking about your years of experience with this, are there any specific examples of student impact stories that you'd like to share? 

Carin: There's a couple of quick ones. Two students come to mind. One, when this student was a freshman, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and we actually around the same time (not connected to this student) were making something they call port pillows, which are just go over a seat belt to protect the port from being aggravated by a seat belt. Super easy to make. There's lots of oncology hospitals in the world that will accept them. 

And he was able to come in and spend some of his time making those pillows and made a number of them, I think just in a way of how he could connect some of his what was going on in his personal life, to doing something about it. It was small, but it was a way for him to maybe engage in something that helped him to understand that many people care about the people who are going through this, and also he could see that many other students were doing this too, right. And so it's an opportunity in that way to see that other people are supporting, maybe people potentially who are going something through something similar to his mom. Another student, a few years ago, was having some pretty significant mental health challenges and ended up coming in here connected to being taught by another student how to make something. I think partially because that student had a crush on the student who showed him how to do it. But the way that that helped to transform him in the sense of having a place to go and support some of his mental health issues and finding some good to do that he kept coming back even after he lost interest in this student. 

And year after year continued to make things through to his senior year in the way of it being an opportunity for him to find a place. And I do think too in general, we've had several students where this has become their place. And so it's just yet another option, right? Where we end up maybe appealing to a surprising variety of students and once can leave knowing that they are doing something good, maybe even for people who are connected to their own personal life or in a situation that they too themselves have been through. 

Suzi: That's what libraries are all about. You know, we are the safe space for kids and we connect kids to resources. We connect kids to their communities. You are having such an incredible ripple effect on the Berthoud community and beyond. And the way that you're exposing kids to these opportunities to volunteer and make a difference, I really do think it will last their lifetime by having these experiences as young adults. So Carin, just thank you for not only all that you're doing, but especially using your ripple effect to impact Colorado libraries by sharing your story on our podcast. So thanks for being with us, and if you would like to share any resources, we will post those in our episode notes. But again, thanks for being a part of Sunshine and Stories today. 

Carin: Absolutely. So pleased to be helpful and ready to continue to be helpful. So I will include my contact information in that resource. 

Suzi: Thanks Carin. 

Carin: Thank you.

[23:10]  

Kate B: That's our Sunshine and Stories for today Y’all.  

Kieran: If you want to hear even more about what other Colorado folks are up to in their libraries, check out Libraries Learn dot org for all our past and future learning opportunities. 

Suzi: This podcast is offered at no cost to listeners. Thanks to the time, effort and dedication of CSL library development consultants, as well as our state library colleagues and all our volunteer guests from across the field. 

Kate C: CSL projects like this one are funded in part by the grants to states program, which is administered by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. 

Polly: The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the Colorado State Library Institute of Museum and Library Services or the US government. 

All: Thanks for joining us. We'll catch you next time. 

[24:00][music]