Hey gang does anybody here do any charity/volunteering stuff?? It's been something I've been interested in for yonks but feel bad as I've done not a great deal of it, and don't do enough now which I'm hoping to change after university if I can!!

Last Summer a small group of us did an art thing/exhibiton for a local arts festival which is pretty small which caters to the general public not just highbrow arty folk.

We basically decided early on we wanted kids to be greatly involved in it as they're much more creatively minded and exciting than adults.
It involved us going to a school to the youngest year groups and got them to draw loads of pics!! We had a bucket of questions that they had to select from likeIF YOU WERE A SUPERHERO WHAT WOULD YOUR POWERS BE?? and they had to draw what they thought. There were a ton of amazing drawings including one which wasa ship/car/house that could fly and was pretty much the size of a warehouse. Sadly I don't have the photos of these drawings as I'm an idiot who forgets to photo stuff. but maybe someone else in the group has some as the drawings in themselves probably warrant a topic of it's own.

After we got the drawings we were given permission to make use of an unused town center shop to do whatever the heck we wanted with it. We thought the best thing we could do was turn the kids drawings into real life things so we made a load of cardboard buildings/stuff and on the festival days let people come inside to look about. It took a day or two to clean out the place as it was in a big mess!! We also had workshops where kids could make drawings or sculptures and add it into the gallery so it continually expanded. It was loads of fun!! Great seeing kids being really shy and nervous when first given a bit of paper and pens but after like 10 minutes they were incredibly talkative and super excited. One kid stayed for 2 hours drawing pictures and making spacerockets! 
Every picture the kids made at the school was hung in an area like a gallery space. They were really pumped to see their work up like that!!



here's the shop unit just after we cleaned it up.



and after with box houses and trees. not pictured is SPACE ROOM which was a massive rocket with loads planets and rockets made by the kids. one of the planets had googly eyes pasted on and was called george i think.


The tower was based on a drawing in which the superhero (who was the kid) is shooting laser eyes at a bad guy and killing him. he saved the day.


this one was pretty special. It was the first house you saw when you walked in to the shop. On the Sunday the girl who's drawing was the basis for this one came in and was really super excited!! Her mother was nearly in tears she was so proud and happy that it was made. That was really touching. They stayed for ages, and after the festival finished they took the house home with them they liked it so much!
 
 
 
It was all pretty crudely done but I think that really helped in the playful aspect of the whole thing. I know that the kids wouldn't have been as excited if we made HYPER REALIST houses and stuff based on their work, they really liked the vibrant colours.

I'd love to do more stuff like this, pop-up galleries/workshops would be a cool thing to carry on, it lets unused buildings get a new lease of life for a while and gets a clean up so it looks nicer for possible buyers, it's pretty environmentally and economically friendly as it's mostly just cardboard/papers and whatever that can get recycled and the kids and the adults seemed to really really enjoy it.

So anyways, anyone else done any cool volunteering stuff or even experience working with kids???


Also discuss how cool kids drawings are thread.

I've noticed volunteer work is less showing up and helping out but more..

Showing up, interview, bullshit extra tedious effort, second interview, enthusiasm, references then sometimes the background checks, happy face, drug tests then comes the health & safety training, diversity training, the how to deal with people training, the how not to touch a kid training, some more pointless training then doing it all over again only this time in a fucking group training.. and finally the legal shit.. signing your name on the, cant sue us contract, the you die and tough shit contract, appropriate behaviour contract e.i. 'no touchy touchy', the confidentiality contract, your start of volunteering contract, the mid-week contract, the end of week contract and of course the end of contract contract.

Why does the world try so hard to be my enemy?

bad experiences...

 
Aww heck I'm sorry to hear it's been a pretty bad experience for you bud!! It's a shame that there's so much laws and regulations that prohibit so many trivial things and just make it a burden to actually help people. We were lucky and had little problems with getting access to go to the kids classrooms to get them to draw for an hour. The teachers were really kind and helpful! Same goes for the workshops on the site, everyone involved were really supportive of the idea.
 
One thing that's kind of funny is that as we didn't have anywhere to stay for the week and a bit when we were there, we were sleeping upstairs in a tiny office room of the shop that was damp and freezing due to the building being vacant for over 2 years hahaha. Totally worth it though!

That's really cool esiann and Jamie, it's super nice!! I can imagine it's really helping folk, there's a really nice feeling when there's people there to actually show some support or do something just of their own free will and I'm sure everyone who benefits from it are really appreciative. 
 
It'd be cool to set up something for or through the uni but I'm in final year with a dissertation and a heap load of stuff to get done which is kind of stalling me on doing that right now... Kind of bummed out we never tried to do anything before now.  But there's a few of us after university who are moving to Glasgow I think and that might be a cool place to carry on trying something like this maybe???
 
The kids were from different kind of families, it was a small town so there were some well off and some probably doing just ok. But we did go to the special needs class too and they seemed to really enjoy it. One kid was super awesome at drawing dinosaurs there!! But yeah I agree, doing something like this in an area where there's a good deal of poverty/underprivileged would probably be really a worthwhile cause. One thing we did to make sure the kids actually came to the workshop on the days was we gave to the classes PERSONALISED GOLD TICKETS that invited them to the thing. It looked pretty neat and we were thinking if I was a kid and got a gold ticket inviting myself to something that I helped make I'd be pumped.

Nothing is as heartwarming as seeing the broken spirit of a scumbag wage or deposit thief reluctantly pay what they owe after making their life miserable for a month

you are a real trooper.

For a second I thought I was in the pets topic and I was like "wait mkkmypet has a pet snake?"