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Here, we’ll present stories of many amazing, heart-felt Design Gives Back Projects now happening around the country.
Please e-mail me with your site or blog and a description of what you are doing. Below you’ll see a few of my own recent projects.
Bedroom Makeover:
Kelee & Claudia
Kelee goes to Los Angeles to work with Claudia, a Starlight Foundation recipient who's 15 and physically challenged. Together, they turn Claudia's bedroom into a colorful “Book of Me” that reflect her beliefs, goals, dreams and “heart values”.
Like many of the projects featured in Kids' Sacred Places, this transformation relies on the “Heart & Hand” process:
“To help kids look inside themselves, to think about what's troubling them – to explore their goals and dreams and interests – and bring it in to the visual realm by creating a meaningful new space.”
KELEE KATILLAC: Design Gives Back (Girl's Bedroom) from Kelee Katillac on Vimeo
Habitat for Humanity:
DIY Decorating Project
Make yourself at home and step inside Habitat for Humanity’s House of Belief – a colorful, joyful place to Believe & Create. Habitat homeowners offer their personal tour of the House of Belief pilot home created in Kansas City to demonstrate this inspiring DIY process.
Create a living room that nourishes creativity: art, crafts, music, meditation and reading. A dining room Table of Abundance. The kitchen where “soul food is food for the soul”. The bathroom, decorated in bright Caribbean colors. And bedrooms where kids can believe in themselves and their families.
“If you believe in yourself, you can create. And once you start creating, you believe more in yourself. So it’s a never-ending cycle, and it just blooms and then flows out into the house – and into your community.”
KELEE KATILLAC & DESIGN GIVES BACK: Habitat for Humanity DIY Decorating Project from Kelee Katillac on Vimeo
Chairs That
Change the World.
Kelee's six-week-long workshop is a hit at Emmanuel Church & Community Center in Kansas City as part of the summer enrichment camp for kids at risk in the community. Using discarded chairs – yes, just chairs – she demonstrates how teens can create a room that's all about them, about their goals and dreams, to discover their creative power inside.
“Make and Believe” can be a powerful motto:
“Paint away that bad thing (rejection, violence, ridicule) right on the chair. Then create a positive symbol for your life: of who you’re going to be. Paint it on a cushion. The chairs then go home with you to reflect the hopes and dreams that will live in your own bedrooms.”
Also special thanks to Lois Benge-Fortin and Bobbie Nealey, volunteers!
KELEE KATILLAC: Design Gives Back (Inner City Youth) from Kelee Katillac on Vimeo
