Our Proposal, part two

This week and last week, we have been having meetings and have been writing our proposal. We divided the proposal into four different parts and then assigned a section to each member (two people for one section.)

The first section that we assigned was about why we wanted to organize a field day. We thought it was important to explain why it is a good idea and have some research to back us up. The section finished with the goals that our program wanted to meet for the children and for the community. Jessica was in charge of explaining that section.

The second part explained why we chose Mauldin school district. Steph explained her research and the reasons why we thought that Mauldin is a good starting point for our activities. She uses statistics and articles to back up her ideas.

The third part introduces the field day idea and the type of activities we thought about, such as games, events, and competitions. We give specific examples of what games could be played or how to change the field day monthly to fit the time of year. Kyle wrote this section of our proposal.

The fourth part was an mock-schedule for planning an actual field day. We thought about meetings, getting people involved, advertisement, and materials and put them in a specific schedule. The schedule is to help Strong Communities get a stronger picture of what we are trying to do and if the program actually becomes reality, the schedule will be a reference document for them. Elyse and Charlie worked together on the schedule.

The other parts that were not assigned were done by whoever had the time or opportunity.


We send our proposal to Mr. Charles from Strong Communities today. We are excited to receive feedback and see what he thinks of our ideas.

Our Proposal

We have been working on an official proposal this week. We made some big decisions in order narrow down our ideas and have one specific plan.

After researching Greenville County, we decided to focus our attention on Mauldin Elementary schools. The area is mostly made up of middle class people which is what we decided is best since we would need to test out the program with a fairly organized community before converting the program for a less developed area.

For our program, we want to organize a monthly field day.

The children would participate in all types of games and activities that the parents would be running. Some of the examples of the games we were thinking about are

• three-legged race
• egg race
• water balloon toss
• tug-of-war

Also we were thinking about some more organized sports like basketball or soccer. The games would change depending on the season, for example, you wouldn't want to have a water balloon toss in winter.

At first Strong Communities would be organizing the field day but the goal of the program is for the program to be community-run. After the first couple months, hopefully, the communities would be able to take over the organization.

Meeting One

We had our first meeting this week to discuss what we think about the project with the company Strong Design.

We had many ideas from the start of the meeting so most of the time was spent comparing ideas and figuring out how we wanted to approach the project. Some of the broad ideas suggested were:

• Athletics
• Transportation
• A pamphlet/newsletter
• Parent and child interaction

We decided that we all like the idea of a pamphlet or newsletter to keep the parents and children involved with all the activities that are going on in the community. We think it should be sent to the house and not just handed out at school so it will definitely make it to the parents and everyone will have equal opportunity to participate.

We also like the idea of an athletic program. We were thinking about something like a soccer team that everyone could participate in and enjoy. We were thinking about having different communities form different teams so there would be a fun competition between the kids; give them something to play for.

We decided that we needed to run some of our ideas by the director of Strong Communities before making any specific decisions so we gave the job of sending an email to Mr. Charles to one of our team members. Hopefully after we hear from him we will be able to make some more specific decisions.

Introduction

Welcome to our team blog.

Our team name is Strong Design because the group consists of four architecture majors and a finance major. We are working with the organization Strong Communities which is a program that organizes activites for parents and young children. Their goal is to bring the people in the community together for a stronger and safer area for the children. The idea behind Strong Communities is that closer communities create closer families which lowers levels of child abuse and neglect. Our job is to give them ideas to advertise and advance their program.

Our team members are:

Stephanie:
Stephanie is a senior architecture major who loves the environment and aspires to be a green architect. Also, she's interested in bettering communities through green urban design.

Elyse:
Elyse is a senior architecture major aspires to be in historic preservation after she graduates. She cheers on the Clemson competitive cheerleading squad and is minoring in French.

Jessica:
Jessica is a senior architecture major. She loves to travel and enjoys snowboarding. Also, she is getting married after graduation.

Kyle:
Kyle is a senior finance major.

Charlie:
Charlie is a senior architecture major who aspires to work in a firm in the upstate after graduation. He enjoys saltwater fishing and soccer.

We'll continue to update our posts as we develop a project.