Category Archives: Edward C. Gartland Youth Center

Youth Center Games Room makeover

Way back last November we started on freshening up the Games Room at the ECG Youth Centre.  The first step was teaching a tie-dye class.  Then after the holidays we needed one more class to have enough materials to start recovering all of the task chairs that had gotten very worn over the last year. This brough us all the way up until May, so many kids worked diligently to get to the photo you see below.
Next up we Decoupaged the tops of the pair of games tables.  They went from worn white to the explosion of color, shape, and vibrance you see below:
Our final step is to get some new art on the walls.  Assistant director, Charrish Ferguson has taugh a scratch art classes and we decided to make a bold display with several of the finished pieces.  Our shooting star design will be hung on the wall just as soon as we can find some sticky tack!  Great job to all my students who participated!

TCI Shines and Earth Day

Photo by David Stone
“Please Help TCI Shine All Year Long!”  This was the TCI Environmental Clubs message for last Saturday’s clean-up.  Big thanks to the artistic skills of several kids at the Edward C. Gartland Youth Centre
Photo by PepperKeyStacie
Participants in the Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association‘s TCI Shines Campaign showed up bright and early at 6:30am at the Lower Bight Park.  Here are the teams and individuals we all have to thank for making Providenciales cleaner and greener:

  Much to my disappointment, after seeing 36 new volunteers sign-up at the Volunteer Fair and all 200 members of the TCI Environmental Club alerted via our facebook page, only ten of us turned up for this great initiative.  Unlike last year, where the event saw far more partipants, we were unable to meet our goal of 700 bags collected.  The good news is that for the very first time, we were able to separate recyclables from the litter, all of which was so generously collected by TCI Waste.  

Huge thanks to IGA and Graceway Gourmet for their Earth Day efforts
  Tomorrow is Earth Day, please get out there and Clean It Up and join our Campaign to Ban Single Use Plastic Bags in the TCI.  Lynn Robinson and I made note of how many plastic bags we collected over the 3 hours and tallied over 150 plastic bags removed during TCI Shines with just the two of us!  Please shop with thought and bring your own reusable bags, don’t use a toxic plastic bag designed to last over 1,000 years for ten needless minutes and then throw it away to pollute our environment.  If you see someone littering in TCI, please educate them on why they shouldn’t.  Let them know there will be a bottle deposit coming soon to a parking lot near them and to keep those beverage containers as they will be worth CASH!

Rag wreaths for the Christmas Fair

Supplies we used to make the rag wreaths were causarina pine branches bent in the shape of a ring and duct taped together, fabric (this beautiful holiday paisley fabric was donated by the Castillo family) cut into 4-6 inch long x 1inch wide strips, and a selection of ribbon to make the loop to hang the finished wreath.
Big thanks to all my students who participated: Merline, Gregory, Lino, Edline, Yameen, Marc, Sabeen, and more!  Wonderful job!
Today is a great day to get some shopping done while supporting worthy causes.  The The Salvation Army is hosting their sale at the Graceway IGA starting at 9am.  There will be books, toys, clothes, Christmas decorations and more.  The TCI Red Cross is hosting a Christmas Fair at their building on Leeward Highway (just before Suzie Turn) from 11am to 4pm.  Both markets will have loads of goodies, so please stop by both.  I will be at th Red Cross fair with a table of handmade crafts; rag wreaths made by students at the Edward-Gartland-Youth-Centre and a small selection of Caribbean scarves and shadowboxes made by moi.  All proceeds from the rag wreaths will be donated to the tci youth centre.  We hope to see you there!
All images by pepperkeystacie

Tie Dye Class at ECGYC

All images by pepperkeystacie

Last Saturday morning I had a dozen boys attend my tie dye class at the Edward C. Gartland Youth Center.  We had a pair of white cotton curtain panels donated by the Taylor family, which we then cut into sections which will later be sewn into chair covers for the games room.  Each student had one to two piecess to twist, fold, and manipulate into their unique design.  Once all the pieces were wrapped and secured with rubber bands we put on our gloves and got started with the dying.  Each color was soaked for 5 minutes before moving onto the next.  Once finished, each piece was wrapped in a plastic bag and left in the sun for two days to fully saturate the dye into the fabric.  On Monday, just before closing, I had one faithful student Marc waiting to see how his creation turned out.  He helped me unwrap each of the pieces, rinse them in cold water, and hang them to dry.  What a kaleidoscope display we left on the line; great job to all the participants!  Stay tuned for part two of this class.  If you want to have your own tie dye fun on Provo, visit Nell’s gift shop for a small selection of boxed dyes.

Summer Bash at the Youth Center

All images by PepperKeyStacie
Last Saturday the Edward C. Gartland Youth Center hosted their Summer Bash celebration.  The kids are due back to school this week so this was a great time for the kids to have some fun before it’s back to the books.  As you can read from the posters above, there were loads of activities for the kids to participate in.  I had the great fortune of asssisting with the Limbo contest and was I ever impressed, especially with our three top finalists. 

From top to bottom left to right:
Basketball competition, jamming to the tunes of the dj, Director Nikita giving a helping hand to her daughter under the limbo, preparing for the talent competition, volunteer Taylor Drotman and one of the star limboers getting his strategy down, and the Bean Bag Toss with director Roxann looking on.

  The ECGYC is always looking for volunteers, if you have some spare time to teach a class, monitor the computer lab, tutor, or have ideas of your on how you can help, please contact here.