Ugly Dolls Go To The Fête

Let's get one thing straight about Ugly Dolls--they aren't ugly. Actually, they're pretty darn adorable which is probably why they were swooped up by the Maret School Fête attendees on May 14. How did the Ugly Dolls get to the Fête? Here's the story:

Maret seventh graders are in to the environment. They spend time learning about things like reusing, recycling, energy conservation and how our habits affect the world. They are environmental ambassadors at their school, teaching other students that "green" is more then a color. SCRAP is in to that too. So it seemed like a natural partnership when Maret and SCRAP teamed up to do a full day of creative reuse for the students' Community Service Day in late April.

The students chose three projects to work on throughout the day. Ugly Dolls, T-shirt Tote Bags, and Aluminum Can Airplanes. The materials came from SCRAP's "recently diverted from the landfill" stock pile, the students' "I never wear these clothes" drawer and the recycling bin's "eww, this is kinda gross and sticky" supply of soda and juice cans. Purchases were limited to some necessities like glue and duct tape so it's pretty safe to say that these projects were 75% reused or reclaimed materials. Thus, we spent the day cutting in to aluminum cans (with gloves on!), converting t-shirts in to bags, and transforming bits of fabric in to little creatures with big personalities. The seventh grade did an AMAZING job creating and followed up with superb enthusiasm while selling their creations at the Fête. I'm so impressed. Good job guys!


>>My favorite. So cool!

BBP (Heather's take)

April was a big month for SCRAP-DC. We started off the month prepping for the Build a Better Block Project on 34th Street in Mt. Rainier, Maryland. Back in the fall we were approached by the Neighborhood Design Center in Prince George’s County and asked if we wanted to participate in the project and we said yes. You can check out BBP history here, but here’s the gist of it...A group of people in Oak Cliff, Texas looked at a mostly vacant street in their community and thought something along the lines of “what if we had a dream day for this street and filled it with small businesses and restaurants and flowers and bike lanes and art and benches for meandering pedestrians to stop and enjoy the action all around them? We could show people what this street could really be.” So they did it and then soon after the event the vacant properties were rented and filled with businesses and their dream started turning in to a reality. The wonderful people of NDC in Maryland had a similar thought and, thus, SCRAP ended up with a vacant storefront to fill for a day

So with help of awesome (and I mean TRULY AWESOME) volunteers we scraped the layers of gunk off the floor, cleaned the stickers off the windows, painted the walls, painted the door, painted the trim, cleaned shelves, cleaned tables, hung fabric and set up SCRAP-DC’s first creative re-use center! The shop officially existed for a day, but, man, did it make me and Karen hungry for a space of our own (we’re working on it…). We got to talk to so many people excited for the SCRAP vision and watch the rapture on bargain hunter’s faces (this yarn is a dollar?!). SCRAP also hosted a guest artist, Amina, who showed BBP attendees how to make sturdy reusable bags out of plain old plastic bags.

Of course the BBP focused on much much more then SCRAP. Check out pictures on the NDC webpage to see all the other fabulous vendors, artists, musicians, businesses, and nonprofits. And see the shout-outs in Karen's post. We like them all a lot.

Build a Better Block

Still thinking fondly of our one-day retail store & workshop back in April! Here's a list of all of the people and organizations that made it happen:

Cash sponsors: M-NCPPC; Anacostia Trails Heritage Area; Councilman Will Campos; Prince George's County DHCD

In-kind donations: Envision Prince George's County; M-NCPPC; City of Mount Rainier; Community Forklift; Kathy Osore Gardens for All Seasons; Robin Bliss, Retail Designer; Home Depot; Behnke's Nursery

Organizing Partners: Neighborhood Design Center; City of Mount Rainier; Gateway CDC; Joe's Movement Emporium; Mount Rainier Business Association; Community Forklift; ScrapDC :^); Maryland Chapter of ASLA

There are also these photos of the day and a Gazette article (with video). We can't wait for the next one!