Crafting Kindness is a club sponsored by agriculture floral design teacher Mrs. Sheila Merriman Parr.
The club’s mission is to have a club that focuses on helping the community through creativity and citizenship. They work with various organizations to make donations created by the members of the club.
The current President is Mariana Lujan for the second year in a row. Mariana Lujan has been a continually active member of the community. Mariana is an NHS member, former dementia awareness alliance historian, and is a part of the varsity tennis and is a current IB student. Recently they had their first Childrens hospital workshop in their club.
They create decorations and toys including flowers, and paper airplanes. They have recently announced a new meeting to go over their next project. They are going to be crocheting as their next project. The meeting will be on the 19 of September during lunch in Fine Arts.
We interviewed the president of the club Mariana Lujan. She stated that arts and crafts are the focus of the club. They can do one of three things with it.
They can make crafting kits by making a basket with supplies and instructions for kids to do fun arts and crafts activities while spending their time in the Childrens hospital.
They also create general workshops where all the members get together and create things like toys. Usually, they donate the toys to the Childrens hospital. On special occasions they also donate them to the Childrens home, nursing home and the animal shelter.
Mariana said that the club has created close ties with the El paso Childrens hospital to make crafts for and with the kids.
We interviewed the host of the club, Mrs. Merriman-Parr. She stated “Aria Bella Denials started the club two years ago during covid when she was a senior. She was in an IB program at the time. Her goal was to engage students during covid to participate in different community service events.”
Mrs. Parr helps with getting materials and finding places to host the meetings while the officers plan activities, dates, and reach out to organizations. The officers meet once a month and discuss any ideas. The officers run the whole club.
“The club has been successful because there are many students that want to be involved in doing community service, but the traditional ways aren’t as fun as Crafting Kindness is because they get to do crafts. The goal of the club is to provide community service to the community.” added Parr.
The president Mariana has been consistently reaching out to the Childrens hospital to bring joy to the kids staying there. Recently they have had consistent projects involving the Childrens hospital.
Activities done on campus are to support teachers and help the community. They have been expanding and diversifying the things they do in the club.
In their upcoming meeting, they will teach students how to crochet and discuss what they will be crocheting as their next project.
Mrs. Parr thinks that anyone on campus could benefit from joining crafting kindness because “it is a fun and non-traditional way of doing community service.”
