-
Participants, interns, staff and volunteers with the LEC alongside volunteers from Pi Kappa Alpha, Kappa Alpha Order, Phi Mu and New City Church stand in front of the LEC’s Coffee for a Cause coffee truck. -
Kappa Alpha Order volunteers and Greenhouse Manager Bryant Utts apply water seal to the outdoor furniture. -
Pi Kapp, New City Church, and LEC volunteers lay the rock foundation for the deck of the Urban Arts Village. -
LEC intern Juliette Calemine and LEC participant Asia Thomas paint the Arts Building. -
Victoria Hearn, Katie Payne (center), and Kate Shades paint the staff only room.
The Life Enrichment Center (LEC) hosted their second work day to continue the development for their upcoming Urban Arts Village on Feb. 25.
The work day was split between preparations at New City Church at the Mill and the Life Enrichment Center.
Participants, interns and faculty from the LEC, volunteers from Pi Kappa Alpha, Kappa Alpha Order, Phi Mu, and members of New City Church all gathered to split work amongst themselves.
Pi Kappa Alpha and New City Church volunteers worked at New City Church at the Mill where they cleared brush, dug out trenches, created mulch and laid a rock foundation. Participants from the LEC and volunteers from Kappa Alpha Order and Phi Mu worked at the Life Enrichment Center to prepare the community garden, paint a mural, and paint the Arts Building.
“We had a strong start to the day with our coffee truck serving free coffee to everyone who gathered,” said Barbara Coleman, executive director of the Life Enrichment Center.
“Our Coffee for a Cause ensured all of our volunteers and participants were full of energy for the day.”
LEC’s Coffee for a Cause was served out of their coffee truck by Bridgette and Jarred Smith on Saturday. The common ground blend is donated by local coffee shop Morning Grind that has shown an extensive amount of support for the Life Enrichment Center and its goal to develop the Urban Arts Village. In the future, LEC’s coffee truck will serve coffee at the Urban Arts Village but currently the coffee can be bought at the LEC, Morning Grind, or at the BodyPlex. All coffee funds are used to support the LEC and its participants.
“I am currently working with the LEC on their fundraising efforts for the village through my Nonprofit Management Class. Last semester we worked on a program to work on inclusivity and offer an opportunity for participants to interact with the local community.
Those efforts became the coffee truck that served us Saturday morning,” said Justin Harned, Pi Kappa Alpha member and president of the Nonprofit Leadership Student Association at GCSU. “There has been a vision for the Urban Arts Village for a while now where people can gather and sell their art and show off their skills. The coffee truck is just one example of one thing the participants will sell at the village and interact with other people through.”
Harned is a double major in public health and political science and has worked with the LEC since the start of the school year. According to Harned, he is currently helping the LEC apply for two grants that will help to fund the village and will focus on making the space inclusive for everyone.
Some of their grant goals include creating accessibility ramps and other items to make the entire village accessible, creating common areas to gather, and promoting LEC participants and the community to interact with each other. He further noted that one of these grants is through Pi Kappa Alpha who has been working diligently with the LEC on projects that promote inclusivity.
“This will be a place for everyone in Milledgeville to gather and learn from each other. Even the process of building everything together is pushing that goal of inclusivity and will make the final product more special,” said Harnard.
Similar to Pi Kapp’s motives to work with the LEC, Kappa Alpha has worked with them for 10 years to integrate and support programs that bind the local community and LEC together.
During the work day, Kappa Alpha specifically worked on the community garden and the building’s mural project that they have been a part of for a while. Members of the fraternity painted walls on the building under the guidance of LEC Board of Directors member Susan Bergeron and worked with LEC volunteer Greg Eilers and Greenhouse Manager Bryant Utts to build ramps to the garden shed, paint the repurposed fencing poles for decoration and apply water seal to the outdoor furniture.
“We are working to make this back area of the LEC an accessible area and place for growth of their activities while also bringing back a focus on horticulture,” said Eilers, who has volunteered with the LEC for 18 years. “Bryant (Utts) has become the official greenhouse manager and has been guiding all of our volunteers through the process of building the community garden beds and our greenhouse that we worked on during the first work day. We’re both thankful for the hard work of these individuals and the progress we’ve made.”
Utts agreed with Eilers stating, “Everything they have done has been my favorite. The garden is beautiful.”
Together all the volunteers and participants have laid the groundwork for the Urban Arts Village that Coleman hopes will open this spring.
Together it will come to fruition and support the overall goal of making a communal space for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities to interact with the local community so both parties may support one another.
“I am so thankful for everything that the Pi Kapps, KA’s, Phi Mu, New City Church members and LEC staff, volunteers, and interns have done for us.
We are so grateful for each person who has worked to make this village a reality,” said Coleman.