Senior Projects

The second week of my Senior Project will be spent working at Dardenne Prairie City Hall. As of Friday they had been practicing social distancing but had not graduated to gloves and masks. In light of the Governor’s stay-at-home order, they have upped their cleaning protocol and are restricting public access to just the lobby with barriers to prevent roaming. When I shadow I will be wearing a mask and gloves per my parents request and my own efforts to not obtain and spread the virus.

On Monday, tomorrow, I am shadowing the Mayor and City Administrator to get an overview of the operation of city government and the interaction of the voters and their elected representatives (i.e. mayor and board of aldermen). On Tuesday I am shadowing the Court Administrator and Prosecuting Attorney’s Assistant to get a close look at the role and function of the municipal court. For Wednesday I am shadowing the building inspection/permit/code enforcement department and the economic development department to learn how and why the city manages the build code and regulates construction and renovations in residential properties and how the city promotes the businesses in the city and attracts new businesses. On Thursday I am set to attend the weekly Staff Meeting at 9:00 and shadow Buildings and Grounds Department and the City Clerk/Treasurer to learn how the city takes care of parks and buildings and how the city keeps records, responds to record requests, and handles money. Lastly, on Friday I am shadowing Parks and Recreation to see how the City develops and manages recreation programs. I was scheduled to see the preparations for the annual children’s Easter Egg Hunt scheduled for 4/11 but that was cancelled.

It is a pretty packed week however there might have been some changes to my schedule due to COVID-19. I am excited to get out of the house and have some human interaction outside of my immediate family. Like I said, each week I am looking one week ahead. I just got news that my shadowing opportunity at Elasticity Marketing in St. Louis has been cancelled since they are not an essential business. I am in the process of coming up with productive and meaningful things to do next week, some of my ideas are: upcycling some clothes, teaching myself how to embroider, learning how to design and code a website, and possibly fulfilling my childhood dream of becoming a fashion designer by learning how to sew. If you have any suggestions please reach out!

Hey all! For the first week of my project I did a DIY Week. At the beginning of the week, I planned to make masks, jewelry and a crochet scarf. It’s Sunday now and I thought I would do a quick post on what actually happened!

I ended up just crocheting a scarf. It took me SIGNIFICANTLY longer than expected. I had never crocheted before, so my mom had to teach me. When I started, I was terrible at it and I thought it was the biggest waste of time ever. After 30 minutes of trying to make one row of stitches, I rage quit. After pouting for a little bit, I decided that I didn’t want to be mad at a piece of yarn anymore and that I wanted to give it another try. I worked on it for a while and I started to get a little better. When crocheting, you always have to have the same number of stitches in each row or what you’re making will keep getting smaller. I didn’t know this, so my scarf kept getting smaller by each row I stitched. I had to rip out all the work I did multiple times due to this. I spent all week working on the scarf and I’m happy to report that I have completely changed my mind on crocheting, I actually LOVE it! It was so nice to spend a week doing something that wasn’t starring at my tv, phone or computer screen. I’m so proud of it and I can’t wait to wear it next year when I’m at Drake!

I ended up going to Walmart yesterday and buying a lot more yarn to occupy me for the next few weeks at home.

I’m thinking about just turning my senior project into crocheting for 7 weeks. I have a bunch of yarn and a bunch of projects I want to do. My mom and I figured out how to do the masks, so I can also work on that.

Hi everyone, I thought I’d give an update on what I did this week!

Getting to the end of the first week, I’m beginning to settle in the schedule at made for myself to keep myself on track.

Here’s my schedule:

9:00- Wake up

10:30- Studying

12:00- Lunch

1:30- Arts and Crafts (I plan to finish one art project each week)

3:30- Reading (I plan to finish one book each week)

4:30- Workout

5:30 Studying

My family usually has dinner at 6-6:30 and that’s when I’m done for the day.

Right now, studying for me includes online classes through Udemy and Blueprint, and I’m also planning and doing a research project on a different animal each week (except this past week). I’ll make some sort of way to present it and I’ll share it with everyone on my blog posts.

This week, for my art project, I learned how to cross stitch! It was pretty simple, Mom taught me how to do it, and I’ve already ordered some more patterns to try out.

Most weeks I’m going to switch between writing and a visual craft from day to day. But, this week I just spent time on the cross stitch.

For reading this week, I finished a book called The Reader by Traci Chee. It’s a fantasy book, the first in a series. I started it a while ago and took this week as an opportunity to finally finish it. I really enjoyed it, it has very good world building, and the description was very vivid. I’ll have to find the next book in the series.

Unfortunately, I am no longer planning to volunteer at the rabbit house, but I’m hoping to try out lots of new crafts/hobbies and learn about some things I’m interested in!

Grace

Hello! I hope this post finds everyone well.

I want to you give an update on the non-profit organization that I have been working on, The Incandescent. 

Here is our mission statement: “Our purpose is to create a platform for teens and young adults to express their opinions and emotional response to world issues in the form of poetry, prose, visual art, and more. We also hope to be part of the solution to problems our generation is facing, such as global warming and COVID-19, by collecting funds through writing and art contests supporting young artists.”

About a week ago, a friend reached out to me and asked if I want to be a part of an entirely non-profit, teen-run literary magazine. Of course I said yes. I joined the planning committee, and I was fortunate enough to bring this platform into existence with a team of amazing young people (some of whom I knew through the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop).

I became a part of the creative thinking team. We spent most of the time discussing the format of the website. Since it is entirely an online platform, the aesthetics and functionality of the website are both important. During the first sections, we brainstormed names, discussed office positions, created email/fundraising platform/website/social media accounts…

We fundraised over 700 dollars on the first day and bought our platform on Wix.com. As of for today, we raised $930 in total. We brainstormed alternative ways to raise funds like contest fees and subscriptions. We also researched the process of filing as an official non-profit organization.

After another long meeting, I spent a couple of hours working on the website. I figured out how to add tags to the pieces and also how to attach a free submission manager (Green Submission) to the website.

I’m really excited for this project, and I think it will do a lot of good in the world.

If you have any relevant piece, you’re strongly encouraged to submit to us and contribute to our first issue. The deadline is Saturday, April 11th. Here is the link to submit: https://forms.gle/ofupakHuGSVrvJdC7.

If you’re unsure, feel free to ask me any question and/or read more in the description of our gofundme. Here is the link to the gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-incandescent?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1.

Here is the link to our website: https://www.theincandescentreview.org/. We are still working on it, but please feel free to subscribe to our mailing list. Our spring issue is coming soon!

Please go follow @theincandescentreview on Instagram and donate if you can!

Like most of us, my plans for senior project have pretty much been cancelled. The Crown Ridge Tiger Sanctuary and the Endangered Wolf Center have both said that I can reschedule my internship for another time, so I might still get a chance to do what I was going to do, but for now I have to redirect.

Instead, I’m going to volunteering at the Missouri House Rabbit Society three times a week. They are entirely volunteer run, and so they need help to keep all of the bunnies taken care of. They’re taking health precautions and requiring all volunteers to be social distancing, as well as keeping the number of the people in the building as low as possible.

Other than that, I have days to fill with other projects. Each week, I would like to complete one art project (whether it’s writing or visual art) and read one book (luckily I have a long list).

I also will be trying some online classes through Udemy and Blueprint on things that I want to learn how to do or to get better at (like drawing/sketching). I’ll post pictures of my art projects and of the rabbits as long as I can do volunteer time there!

Grace

Hello!
So far some of my project has been cancelled, like the State Park, but that’s okay. God gave me the idea to do an independent study!
I’m excited about being able to research some subjects I’m quite passionate about. This is independent study involves four plus subjects, with ideas in ():

Arabic (Speaking and understanding the Egyptian Dialect and the Basics of the language in general…)

Apologetics (Scientific, archaeological, historical, logical case for the Bible, God, and the gospel…)

Medicine (the body systems I want to learn more about, medical fields and majors, advice for medical school…)

Other (Spanish vocabulary and grammar, writing, Math concepts…)

I would highly recommend! I think I am doing 5 hours over 6 days instead of 6 hours over 5 days.

Eleanor L

Since most of my plans for this month have been cancelled, I decided to start sewing masks for the local hospitals that are in need of them. It is starting out slow right now but I hope to get faster as I keep sewing throughout the weeks.

I will hopefully be starting volunteer work at s food pantry either tomorrow or the next day. Here I am going to be packaging boxes and/or delivering them for families who need the food.

I have also been starting cooking/baking more often for my family (mostly cookies but I plan on branching out to other things), and I have also been writing down ideas for new stories that I can start on.

I hope that I can build on this momentum to keep the schedule that I have set out for myself.

Hope everyone is doing well and is staying safe!

-Clare

Hi guys,

As of right now, I only have one week of my senior project that hasn’t cancelled and that is week 4, doing dock construction at Lake Ozark. My plan now is to vlog my life in isolation. Every week I will have a fun task or jobs to do to keep me busy and not sitting on my couch playing Mario Cart (which I have done for a while now.) I’m planning to do a cooking week, yard work week, tennis/fitness week…etc.

That being said… this is DIY Week!

The entire week I will be working on DIY projects that I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the time. I will be making crochet scarves, jewelry, blankets and hospital masks. I’m very excited and I will post pictures at the end of the week. I’m not sure how I will show y’all my vlogs, but I will figure something out. I’m trying to keep them short, so I will probably have 7 short vlogs for each week.

I hope you all are staying safe and healthy in this crazy time! -Kathryn Dennigmann 🙂

My project has postponed, but in the mean time I have chosen to sew face masks and pillows for others. You have no idea how long it takes me to do all this sewing… basically all day. I’m enjoying it. I’m sewing face masks for family members in need or for others while supplies last… I’m not the only one with this idea so supplies are VERY limited. It is extremely difficult to find elastic! Anyways, I’m hoping I will get time at the school I planned to volunteer at. Here are some pictures….

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The first week of my Senior Project will be spent working remotely with Cliffedge Marketing. Cliffedge Marketing is a small, family-like food and beverage marketing agency who partners with local retailers to build and maintain a thriving brand. My contact for this place is the former Ms. Cliffe. During my brother’s time at Barat Academy, a similarly small school like ours, he went out of his way to recruit other peers in hopes of fielding a full soccer team. He made a deal with the cross country team that if they played soccer he would run cross country. Ms. Cliffe, now known as Mrs. Gilbert, was his cross country coach who my family has kept in contact with throughout the years. 

Mrs. Gilbert was supposed to be on maternity leave, however, due to the coronavirus she is working remotely along with the rest of the staff. During one of their meetings they bounced around ideas about how they could provide the most hands on experience for me… virtually. This week I will be focusing on one client of theirs for a possible marketing campaign. It will give me a good feel for what they do overall and help walk me through each of the steps they take when working with a client. I will be putting together a marketing campaign idea for Country Bob’s (one of their main clients), looking at ways to help their brand stand out right now. I will be creating a powerpoint to present my ideas and they will review it on Friday and give me feedback/notes. 

Along with familiarizing myself with their partnerships I will be learning about them and what they do. On Tuesday and Wednesday I will have four meetings (about 30 minutes to an hour long) with the members of their staff who specialize in these four areas: sampling / possible in-store activation techniques, social media posting, consumer engagement / contesting, and branding and how to conduct a sales pitch. I am super excited to start tomorrow. I am taking my Senior Project one week at a time because everything is still up in the air for some of my locations and they don’t want to cancel prematurely.