Lead Team Supports Harborview Towers with Service

By Tamsyn Flathers, Program Coordinator

July 2008

This summer, the CT Lead Team had the opportunity to serve the Bridgeport community through a series of projects at the Harborview Towers complex. Harborview is an apartment complex in the east side that many elderly and disabled individuals call home.

buildOn students from Bridgeport and Stratford volunteered at the complex many times throughout the last school year but this summer the Lead team left the Harborview residents with very special memories.

In May, the Lead team received sponsorship from Oil Drum Art, a local non-profit agency, in the form of two empty, primed oil drums, with the intention that these drums could be painted and converted into trashcans. From their past visits to Harborview, students knew that the hallways and community room were furnished with plain colors and furniture, so they decided to paint and dedicate both oil drums to the complex for the residents to use and enjoy. Additionally, the team was given donated food, flowers and board games to share with the Harborview residents.

On the first day at Harborview, students divided into two groups. Half of the team began painting a drum right away – they didn’t even plan its design first!  Immediately, they created a backdrop of sun, moon, sky and grass.  They then added a multicultural circle of people holding hands around the entire base. Above that, they made a circle of different colored handprints threaded with the phrase, “Make a Difference."  Across the front of the drum they wrote “buildOn” set against a beaming sun and clouds. A second drum was also in the works. The students chose to divide this one into twelve separate squares so that they could each decorate their own space. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the team was busy sorting and distributing flowers to the residents. The students went door-to-door to hand out the bouquets and invite the residents to our second day of service.

The next week the Lead team returned to Harborview to cook and serve a meal to the residents. The experience was initially frustrating for a number of reasons, including the fact that the sink in the kitchen wasn’t working (they had to keep running to another room for water!) and some of the donated food had expired. The team found solution after solution to all of these would-be setbacks and soon the residents began wandering in, excited for a meal.

Most of the residents were interested in eating and conversing with each other more than playing games and cards with the students. However, many of the residents had family members and grandchildren visiting and so the buildOn students played with the children instead, which gave the residents a chance to spend time with their adult family members.

At the end of the day, a resident who had been observing the team for a long time approached them. He expressed that he was grateful for the time that they had given to Harborview as well as impressed to see young people spending their summer helping their community.