We are working with Anna Schmalz of Chatham's Habitat for Humanity in the East Cornwallis Neighborhood of Pittsboro, NC; which consists of mostly habitat homes. They had an entrance-way sign built a little over a year ago to create unity and a sense of community, but unfortunately the sign was broken when a tree fell on top of it during a bad storm.
This sign means a lot to the community, and me and Chelsey want to help get it rebuilt, and plan a neighborhood celebration. Above is a sketch of what the old sign looked like:
This was the original drawing of the sign. The final product was actually made in two pieces with the top piece containing the word East and the bottom half containing the words Cornwallis Subdivision. The bottom piece is still pretty much intact and can simply be reattached to the posts which aren't damaged.
We are currently working on design possibilities for the top portion and plan to come up with additional ideas for add-ons and ways to make it more aesthetically pleasing. We then are going to organize a neighborhood meeting at the "habitat community house" to collaborate with people living in the area and see which design they like the best, as well as if they have additional ideas, and then implement their ideas.
Chelsey and I will be sanding down and staining the salvageable parts of the sign on Tuesday. The rest of the sign will be done by Mr. Pendergrast (who is a shop teacher at Northwood High School in Pittsboro) and his students. We also want to add some sort of flower bed to each post to make it look even better and will be calling florists for possible donations. If anyone works at a plant nursery or has a local garden center connection and could find us some plants that would be a huge help.
On Thursday November 5th is when we plan on having the community meeting regarding picking the sign design they like the best. Before then we plan on handing out fliers in the area to get as many people to come out as possible. This is the flier that me and Chelsey have made for this event:
During our meetings in Pittsboro with Anna, we usually have the community school children follow us around and we sometimes play with them. When talking about plans for the sign one of the kids asked us if we could rename the sign "The Projects" instead of East Cornwallis, which i found interesting. I wouldn't consider the area a bad neighborhood or a place that would constitute such a label. I think this is another reason this sign is so important to the community, so that this image of "The Projects" can hopefully be eliminated, and people, especially the children can identify with their community in a positive light.
I'll keep the class posted on our progress, and how next week goes.
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Joe and I met briefly with Anna last Tuesday, and then sanded the existing sign posts. We are still waiting on the carpentry teacher at NHS to let us know what design ideas he and his class have come up with. We are then going to have a neighborhood meeting and hopefully get everyone's input about what they would like the sign to look like.
The kids were interested, as always, in what Joe and I were doing when they saw us in the neighborhood. We talked to them and one little girl volunteered to help us paint when we get to that point.
We also got a chance to go in the Habitat Store in Pittsboro to look around for any materials we might could use. The store is an interesting place that people should keep in mind when cleaning out or when looking for odds and ends.
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