Create Symposium

The SB40 project group of the Truman Create Symposium focused on educating and helping the community express themselves through art. For the first portion of the semester, we focused on running a kid’s corner for Red Barn, a local crafts festival for all of the Adair County community. The entire class was involved with this project, and each student spent a portion of their day helping run the crafts center. We worked with the Sue Ross Art Center in order to run our crafts, and they were able to supply us with supplies, craft ideas, and a place to have the kid’s corner when Red Barn arrived. We offered crafts such as paper and sticker mosaics, pool noodle pumpkins, and hanging calendar crafts. Truman students helped children who came to the kid’s corner do the various tasks we offered and just interact with the general public of Adair County to ensure the operation went smoothly. What proceeds were collected were for the benefit of the Sue Ross Art Center. 

 

After Red Barn was over in early October, our class split into two groups: craft kits and SB40. SB40 is a group in Adair County that utilizes funds from a tax levee to plan educational, social, and functional skills activities for individuals with intellectual disabilities in Adair County. The students in the SB40 group were able to work with the community coordinator of SB40, Melissa Cline, to create a craft workshop for the individuals SB40 worked with. Students voted on what workshop they would like to implement, and decided to make homemade playdough. SB40 was kind enough to allow the Truman students to go to the SB40 location and get to know the place where the event would be taking place, but also learn more about organizations that help adults with intellectual disabilities. Each person who came to the SB40 event was given a small amount of homemade (blank) playdough, and drink mixes, beads of different colors and sizes, glitter, shaping tools, and other items related to the customization/manipulation of the playdough were provided. The Truman students who worked with the SB40 group were able to walk around and help the people who came to the event, and most were able to sit down with those individuals and interact with them as well. Overall, it was a great way for students who may not know what it’s like to work with individuals with intellectual disabilities to experience it, and allowed the students to step out of their comfort zone in the Kirksville community.