Time flies when you’re organizing, emailing, publicizing, writing curriculum, dancing, laughing & taking pictures! Our last official gathering was last week at Los Cocos Fruteria y Taqueria but the pictures below were taken on the last day at Wonderland of the Americas earlier this month. We’re super proud of this team & look forward to staying in touch with Chris, Dezi, Lisa & Pak! Here are their words from their summer with spare parts.
1. spare parts’ internship is officially over, what are you planning to do with the extra time?
Chris: While the spare parts internship may be over in theory, the connections & actions that we have put out into the universe still have a momentum. spare parts can’t get rid of me that easily! I’ll still be around with my camera. 🙂 I’ll just be able to sleep nine or more hours a night again!
Dezi: I am planning to look into more universities & finishing my senior year at Providence Catholic School. I will also continue making eco-friendly crafts & regular crafts.
Lisa: I’m now working for Advise TX through Trinity University, a branch of the National College Advising Corps. This program trains recent graduates as college advisers & places them in lower-income high schools around San Antonio. We help students with anything & everything surrounding the college application process. I will be the college adviser at Harlandale High School.
Pak: I just graduated in college with an international business degree. Right now I’m in New York City for a while to explore the big town overflowing with different cultures, architecture & possibly network with people & businesses to look for jobs.
2. What was the best part of your spare parts internship?
Chris: The best part of my spare parts internship was putting names to faces at the materials giveaway. Meeting teachers & hearing their stories about how important our volunteer efforts were in their classrooms gave some closure.
Dezi: The best part was working with the kids during the spare parts art camp! I really loved working with kids because they have huge imaginations. We had a lovely bunch of kids that inspired me to become an art teacher.
Lisa: Working with the spare parts team. We had such a collaborative, supportive & fun group of crazies that made this experience so worthwhile.
Pak: The entire internship was the best part! The people who chose to donate stuff to spare parts chose to make a difference to create more artistic opportunities for kids in San Antonio! I also just love the idea of recycling & reusing materials for art making or something that doesn’t end up in the trash. Our earth can’t take any more waste. spare parts also stands for less consumption-it’s time for everyone to go green!
3. What was most challenging?
Chris: The most challenging aspect of my duties included keeping registration & questions maintained. Following up with hundreds of teachers’ email correspondence with organizational language & professionalism is fun!
Dezi: Saying goodbye to everyone! It was a blessing working with such talented people.
Lisa: Receiving donations during the setup of the storefronts at the last week before July 26. I loved that people really wanted to donate to spare parts after they heard about the final giveaway day, but the last-minute organization was stressful!
Pak: Since spare parts doesn’t have a permanent space & is based in all volunteer time, every summer we have to start over from beginning & organize everything from accepting donations in a different location. Then we have to communicate everything to the teachers, individual donors, participating organizations, companies through social media and other avenues of publicity. The good thing is we had a strong community to help out, awesome teamwork within the interns & the founder Mary E. Cantu to lead. This summer was a complete success!
4. What should spare parts should do next?
Chris: spare parts will be starting negotiations for a world peace treaty shortly. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates! Actually, spare parts should strive to be the recipient of a generous grant, start a capital campaign, or partnership to establish physical headquarters with a loading dock & storage, cultivate a diverse board of directors, hire financial/material donor expansion associates, find a pro-bono legal expert, create digital archives, downloadable content & resources, an audio/visual repository of stories at every level of reach, galleries-both physical & digital-to show the world what spare parts creative reuse looks like & hire an education team for workshops, demos, blog postings & special events. The sky is the limit! Now, let’s make it happen.
Dezi: TAKE OVER THE WORLD! I believe spare parts can truly change the way people look at reusable & recycled items.
Lisa: Take it global, baby! But seriously. More organizations like spare parts need to exist. Art education can thrive when kids realize they already have the tools & the materials to foster their creativity, right at home.
Pak: spare parts need a home! Hopefully spare parts will seek a sponsor that can provide a big permanent space for them so they can accept donations anytime of the year, hold workshops & events & of course have more giveaways to teachers! And I hope spare parts will get grants from the city to grow further in the near future & help more teachers.
5. Anything else you’d like to share?
Chris: Incorporate spare parts into your life. Your home, classroom or workplace is a creative space where meaningful change can happen. “Trash is the failure of imagination!” -Aaron Kramer
Dezi: spare parts helped me secure my decision of becoming an art teacher. This internship has really helped me gain real life experience I will definitely need in the future.
Lisa: Trash really is failure of the imagination! (Quote by Aaron Kramer)
Pak: My hometown Hong Kong is one of the most wasteful cities in the world. My goal is to bring this awesome spare parts idea back to my hometown & organize & start a spare parts over there to help with teachers & youth. The most important thing is to reduce waste by recycling & reusing materials into fantastic artwork.