Building Your Community with Service

In this space our topics usually are related to the actual desing and construction of our communities.  At the same time, spaces without heart or the warmth of the people who inhabit them are just that--spaces.

Building one's community takes more than brick and mortar and useful designs on paper.  It also takes action to build a community.

Recently our DSKW team visited our adopted elementary school, Tom C. Gooch Elementary School in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) for a day of voluntarily reading to students.  Our day at the school was led by our senior project manager, Sandy Watson.

"The principal of Gooch, Karina De Los Reyes, invited us to come and read to the Pre-K through third-grade kids," Sandy told us. "On a regular basis community volunteer adults come into the school to read and interact with the kids," she said.

The book read by the volunteers on this day was Dr Seuss' "The Lorax" on the occasion of Theodore Geisel's 108th birthday.

"Not only was it fun to see the looks on the kids' faces and hear their reactions," Sandy continued, "but to see and hear the adults' responses and feel their joy was amazing."

Gooch Elementary was adopted by Sandy during her stint as "Principal for a Day" in the fall of 2011.  Sandy, a former career public school educator and administrator, because of her experience with the building trades, has advised Ms. De Los Reyes on a number of issues relating to the school building itself.

"We try and help with volunteer labor and materials whenever we can," Sandy said. "Recently the outdoor picnic tables needed repair, so we sent over a crew with replacement boards and hardware to make the fixes at our expense."

Building a strong community takes many forms.  Sometimes it involves a Lorax.

The Builder