• Our goal for H&H this year is to help a out our partnered school in Vidyaloka by doing a various number of tasks, making a mural, building library essentials (bookshelves, benches) as well as chairs (with cushioning)
• My goal as a service leader is to effectively split our service group into 3 main groups, 2 that will focus on aiding the Vidyaloka school and the last group will focus on helping OSC build an eco-friendly campus.
• Another one of our service goals is to raise funds to help our partner school. A big personal goal of mine is to gain more money than we did in the previous years (around 70k). I will achieve this by hosting more bake sales and opening our home run to a larger audience to be able to make more money.

Personal Goals:

• I also intend to make OSC’s environment into becoming more eco-friendly by creating 6 more garden beds along with a new compost bin and possibly another biogas plant.
• I wish to effectively plan out our future endeavors alongside my 2 other service leaders to build our service into a more helpful service.

I presented a slideshow to show the service what H&H is about and our goals for this year

Thursday, Sept 2023

For the last 2 service meets, we’ve been discussing our desired projects for this semester.  Last week, Jed and I went around our school to get information for our projects. We first wanted to fix our problem of not having enough members with Mr. Polous to see if we could bring in more members (This ended up being a bigger issue as we lost 2 members the following week to Gecko Gear, this isn’t an issue to us anymore as we’ve developed a way around the struggle). We then talked to Mr. Lockwood about the issue with the compost bin and he answered with his wishes for us to design a new and improved version of the overfilled bin – specifically to be made out of wood/bamboo and to have the bottom be able to touch the dirt. We then discussed a proposed plan with Turtle Hatchery which is in need of wooden boxes, we agreed we would make it for them if they gave us the materials and dimensions. This project should start in the next couple of weeks. Finally, we talked about a proposed collaboration project between H&H and Room to Read, where we work with the same Vidyaloka school who are in need of bookshelves. In our 3rd service week Mr. Leblanc, Ben, Senul, and I went to two different woodworking stores. It wasn’t easy to communicate with the first store so they recommended we go to a different one, which was able to provide the materials which we wished for. They also recommended we buy a spray that can help with water and termite resistance to provide the wood with longevity.

Below is a list of possible hardwoods which we can buy with their prices per sq ft:

Ginisapu (champak tree) – 450lkr
Mahogany – 750lkr
Albesia – 150lkr
Pine – 100lkr
Gantis – 475lkr
ALL 1-INCH THICKNESS
Bamboo 300lkr per 12 feet

Date: Friday, Oct 2023

In the past couple of service meets we’ve been primarily focused on building the compost bin. After buying the bamboo, we first decided on the area where we would put it and measured which measurements we could work with. We discussed and agreed upon a plan for the measurements and the design, deciding on building a design that resembled a picture of a fence which we found online with the dimensions of 6ft by 4 ft, keeping in mind our designated area and whether it will fit or not. We had a variety of designs that we tested, the main one being drilling holes through each bamboo to have them stick together in a weaving pattern. I cut down bamboo from my garden with the help of my dad to have them be the “glue” keeping the bamboo together, however, Ms. Varma thought of the idea of using broomsticks (which none of us were very fond of) so we agreed to use the thinner bamboo pieces. We spent 2 classes transporting the bamboo through our gym up to our design class and cutting them into 18 6ft pieces and around 18 4ft pieces.

October 25th 2023

Today I had my first meeting with eco-schools, a group made of a mix of our environmentally-based service groups (Eco-schools, recycling and paper, and our primary representatives). These will continue until the rest of the year, where we meet every 2 weeks and discuss our latest plans or questions. There are typically 1-2 representatives per service, tending to be the leaders as they have a greater understanding of their service group’s ideas and future endeavors. Mr. Polous overlooks each of the services and acts as a council leader, where he suggests conceptions and takes minutes for the meeting. This time he presented his wish of having 6 more garden beds made around the school. Mr. Lockwood also aided us in making sure our final idea of the compost bin was acceptable and would flourish.

Meeting with ECO SCHOOLS

 

October 31st 2023

Today Ms. Lockwood took Jed, Ben, and I out of class to go on a little service field trip. We went to go visit the Vidiyaloka school which I toured last year (w/ Jed and Isa) but this time, we hoped to get our minds racing with tons of fresh, new ideas for what H&H could do to beneficially aid them in their campuses. Our wish was to meet with either a teacher or even some of the kids so that we could personally ask them what their essentials and wishes are related to the school. However, we went at a time when school was let out and there was no one there for us to interview. On the other hand, we did manage to take a great number of photos and videos; which are essential in showing the rest of the group their school situation.

 

November 23rd 2023

Finished compost bin

 

November 30th 2023

Today went pretty smoothly for having 3 members down. As both of my other leaders were absent from today’s meeting, I decided to do a well-needed planning session, as the past 5 weeks we’ve had our hands and legs busy building the compost bin and have had no time to think about our next couple of projects. I first went to Mr. Polous ahead of time, during my free block, and asked him about his intentions for our group. He simply just stated his desire for another compost bin “near the wall”, I told the team and we spent the first half of our meeting designing a plan for how we could create another one with the limited number of bamboo sticks that we had. Counting 13, we managed to draw up an idea to create a 3-edged compost bin, where our previous compost bin would act as one side of the 3, and have the two other sides be made of the minimal bamboo sticks we had left. I next focused on showing the garden beds to Ms. Varma who wasn’t there when we made them, I gave her an explanation of how we did it and had architects come in and help us through the whole process, as well as mentioning to her that we needed to create 6 more with a plastic cover over each of them. Caught by surprise, she and I called the group into the room to hold a brainstorming session about what we could do to effectively do all of our plans in the most efficient way possible. After agreeing on the idea of splitting the service into 2 different groups, one mainly focusing on aiding the Vidyaloka school and the other building the garden beds, Ms. Varma proposed the idea of having her own students help in the construction of the Vidyaloka school’s essential needs while our group focused on the garden bed, which everyone decided would be a lot better. The final act that we discussed was about having a bake sale, I brought up the one which we held last year, before the end-of-year assembly, where we made close to 50,000 lkr selling goods; and thought of the idea of adding popcorn and popsicles, to the festive goodie collection.