Builds Recap | Tyler Parker
WOW! The year has come and gone and our SOS Builders have been real busy. They started back in the fall working on small projects that taught us how to work together, manage our resources, and how to have some safe fun around some big tools. Needless to say we had a lot of fun with those projects and they got us prepared for our big project which we started tackling in January. However, and more importantly, this past year has been full of some great devotional time with our Builders and we have watched them grow greatly during this time. Our Builders started the year off real strong and we got right to work with some small team building and fun projects. I'm not sure how many of you have ever successfully thrown an egg off a roof but a few of our builders can say they have and it didn't break! As one of our first projects our Builders were tasked with building a contraption that would allow an egg to safely reach the ground from differing heights; the tallest being the top of the SOS Building! They were given a large range of materials and a budget which they could use to buy those materials with. After a week of planning and three weeks of actual build time the builders were ready for their big drop day. Once they dropped them from the top of the building, we had one surviving egg and that belonged to one of our eighth graders Jacquez Veasey. At the end of the day we had all but covered the parking lot with scrambled eggs!
Our big project this year was really neat because we had our first High School Builder, Mya Wisman, and we tasked her with designing and coming up with a plan to mass produce enough picnic tables for the homeowners that we will be partnering with this upcoming summer. Mya took a lot of pride and ownership in this project and she delivered a quality product that was both sturdy and beautiful. Once the first table was finished she shared the assembly process with our middle schoolers and they got right to work for the next three months cutting lumber and putting together 25 picnic tables. Mya shared with me her vision for the picnic tables,
“We hope that the picnic tables help people feel more safe to come out in their communities and spend time or get to know new neighbors and welcome them into safe arms. And we hope that younger people in the community see the picnic tables and want to come and join Builds and become leaders in making their community a better place to live.”
Those are some pretty strong words coming from a freshman in high school who both loves the community she lives in and wants to see it thrive.
Our devotional time with the Builders this year has been full of growth and understanding. We started the year off going over the Bridge diagram which gave them two important pieces of knowledge. The Bridge diagram gives our builders something they can easily share with friends or family and is a tool that helps them better understand the gospel and where they are with their walk with christ. During the spring we switched gears a little and started working on each of the Builders own personal testimonies and learned that each of us has a story to share. Then we wrapped the year up watching the Bible Project videos which is a great resource for our Builders to look at any time they want.
This year has been very full for our Builders and we have had the joy of seeing each of them grow in skill and in faith. We are excited to see out High School Builds program grow as we will be gaining four very talented freshman. It’s such a joy to see them each year wanting to come back to be with us here at SOS and even more exciting to see them want to see their community grow and flourish like Mya does.