My name is Sandra Luo and I am a sophomore at Timberline High School this year. This piece was created during my time in Two Birds in response to the emergence of the worldwide pandemic this year in support of the Kindness Not Virus campaign we created. This digital piece was created with my iPad the procreate app using textures and colors pertaining to the lockdown situation the world had found itself in. In addition to the Coronavirus stamps, texture brushes bring another layer of allusions to the pandemic. A classic toilet paper pattern overlay and a subtle mask texture in the shading of the word “Kindness,” as well as soap suds in the shading of “spread” are all Easter eggs for the viewer to find. Inlines in “spread” include small hearts to reinforce the message of love and kindness in the face of adversity. Since creating this graphic to promote kindness in our community, I’ve worked on several other client-related projects. I am excited to continue developing my graphic design skills in Two Birds and using them to promote goodness.
Grant Chapman
I live in the wonderful city of Boise, Idaho, and, at the time of writing this, I am seventeen years old and a senior at Centennial High School. I’m a member of Two Birds and I enjoy video editing, 3D modeling, designing, and most of all - storytelling. So, here's my question for you: What do you think of when you hear the word "animation"? You might think of big animation companies, like Pixar or Dreamworks. Maybe even a big animated movie like Toy Story or Wall-E. This puts a pretty ambitious connotation to the word "animation", and that often scares people away.
In February of 2019, I decided to direct my very own animated short film. It took over a year to complete, yet the film is only 8 minutes long. I'll be honest, the film doesn't have the best storyline, nor the best animation, but it did create some of the best experiences anyone on that team will take to heart. The goal of the project was to help animation enthusiasts start their careers - and we achieved that goal perfectly. These weren't professionals, these were individuals who wanted to explore an interest. Many people often forget that the first step to being good at something is to be bad at something - this learning experience made many people on the team (including myself) realize that, and it's one step closer to making animation sound a little more approachable, just as everything else should sound in life. We now continue to make movies, getting better and better at the process each time. As we continue to fulfill those dreams of new animators, I realize only now that a movie is never truly complete - it's just released.
Veronica Richmond
My name is Veronica Richmond. I’m a tall, nerdy girl who first got involved with One Stone through joining Two Birds back in 2018. Now, I’m the Managing Director and my love for the studio has only grown. I am a senior at Boise High and Treasure Valley Math & Science Center, and I’m the Board Treasurer for One Stone. I love the people, community engagement, and the vibe of openness, growth, and love.
Combining my art and my passion for science, I use my design to raise money for nonprofits, spread awareness of scientific problems, support facts, and inspire viewers. After working on Two Birds’ Kindness Not the Virus campaign, it was a natural choice to enter the JUMP Billboard Contest downtown. With a focus on hope, unity, and gratitude, the community gallery aims to spread love and support during this chaotic, unexpected, and devastating year.
To pre-COVID me, “doing good” would be volunteering at a nonprofit, participating in citizen science endeavors, hugging my Zumba instructor every Monday, thanking my teachers after each class, and holding open the door for strangers. Now, my definition has expanded to beyond the materialistic and in-person activities that previously constituted “doing good.” Other acts, like sending a friend an email, hopping on a surprise party Zoom, painting for charitable donations, and designing art to brighten the days of absolute strangers walking downtown, are all doing good. And as I watch the cases climb in Idaho and the United States, seeing pictures from my own school’s sports teams without masks, and even still continuing recovery from my COVID-19 infection back in March, my heart is torn apart. My testimony helped keep Boise School District buildings closed for a month, but they reopened anyway. My emails to officials about wearing masks have resulted in no action. And it quickly became apparent that my words were falling on deaf ears. So I took to Illustrator. Though the officials and trustees likely didn’t see my art, if it made one person smile, encouraged someone to wear a mask, or even incentivized a single act of kindness, I have succeeded. In a time where every small action counts, let’s make every action a good one.
Marilyn Perez
Hi! My name is Marilyn Perez, and my pronouns are she/her/hers. I am a senior at Bishop Kelly High School, and I am the chair of One Stone’s board of directors. I have been the good at Empow[HER]. In August, I was given the opportunity to plan and attend a socially-distanced Empow[HER] summit, a full day empowerment experience for 7th-12th grade girls. We discussed a lot of meaningful topics, but one personal conversation stood out to me. I was talking to two girls who were a little bit younger about their school experience. They expressed their difficulty socially, and I told them my story, of experiencing that same negative relationship with my peers. I hope that my stories helped them know that they are awesome and with time they'll find caring, kind friends in the future. I've been the good by sharing my story in order to create connection and positive friendships during a difficult time.
Molly Sparkman
As a junior at Bishop Kelly High School, I am continually looking for ways to become involved in my community. One Stone has given me the opportunity to better myself as well as help teach those around me. I truly believe that education is such an essential part of a well-functioning society, and I feel joy knowing that I am helping others get to learn. To me, doing good is an act of helping others even if it is out of one’s way to do so. Doing good is someone attempting to better themselves as well as their community. My artifact is an art piece that was designed to look like it was drawn by a young kid. I did this because when I think of school and learning, I always think of my art class. I also wanted this to reflect on the idea of helping to educate my Love of Learning buddy and all the fun science/craft projects that we did during the time together. Doing Good is seen in my artwork because it highlights the good I did when I hung out with the little kids. I hope that this experience, which my artifact represents, inspires others to do good because I have talked to a lot of my friends about getting involved in the community to help be the good. I hope that I can continue to spread awareness about helping out in all different ways. Through this opportunity, I have learned a lot more about what I hope to do with my life. I love teaching and helping others learn, and I hope to continue that in the future. I have figured out that I am very passionate about being able to help others because I feel like I learn a lot about myself when I help others.
Meghan Fall
My name is Meghan Fall, and I am a junior at Riverstone International School. I am the Project Good liaison for the One Stone board of directors, and I have been a part of One Stone for the past year and a half. Doing good, to me, means going out in the community and not only making others feel safe, welcome, and cheerful, but also inspiring them to do the same. My artifact reflects this because Empow[HER] is all about helping girls feel powerful and capable of taking on the world, but also to encourage them to make the other women in their lives feel the same. This artifact represents what breaks my heart because it makes me feel so horrible knowing there are girls around the world and in our own community who feel like they are nothing and don’t matter because of their gender. The good I want to do in the world is empowering females to live their truths, explore the world, and know they are capable of doing whatever they set their minds to. This artifact represents the inspiration of good through the girls who have participated in past Empow[HER] events coming back and joining the Project Good team so that they can create their own good. Over the past ten weeks I have learned that I am capable of making real change in our community by using my voice and leadership skills to help bring people together so we can unite in the goal of making the world a better place.
Jaden Hackett
I am Jaden Hackett, a senior at Bishop Kelly High School and a member of One Stone’s Project Good. I have been involved in Project Good for about a year now and have become an invested member of groups such as Sweet Zola’s, Families Living in Inspired Places (FLIP), and Empow[HER]. Doing good is helping the people that haven’t been given the same opportunities as you and giving them the respect they deserve by constructing inventive solutions to large communal issues. My artifact, the knowledge of person-first language, is reflective of doing good in that it provides a form of respect that all humans deserve. The issue of homelessness in our area is often overlooked but many families are in need of our help, and describing them as “people” before describing their situation implements an unspoken respect and instantly opens up more opportunities to help. This simple act starts a chain reaction that spreads to others and ultimately grows a lasting feeling of connection. Homelessness is too large for one person to conquer and must begin with empathy and encouragement. After seeing the desperation in the faces of those experiencing it and then the gratitude in their smiles after lending a helping hand, I have realized the necessity of our help and support. The struggle that is attached to homelessness is one that I have grown a passion for helping solve, and it has taught me so much about who I am as a person and my capability to love and to lift up others. I now am a better leader in that I encourage others to make a change in their communities, and I can more effectively make one in mine.
Molly Connor
I am Molly, a senior at Bishop Kelly High School, and I have been a part of One Stone for about a year now. I have been more involved in One Stone’s Project Good more than ever this fall, but my most impactful project has been Families Living In Inspired Places, also known as FLIP. We reached out to CATCH, a local non-profit, and are partnering with them to provide families in our community who have recently experienced homeless with basic home necessities that often times get taken for granted, such as dressers. So far we have collected eight dressers, and we have started to refurbish two. My favorite part of Project Good in the past has been working with our end users personally, but because of COVID and difficulty communicating, this process has been delayed. But what has been continuously inspiring is knowing that there are over thirty high school students in FLIP who want to help those in our community who are in need. I decided to make this ceramics artifact to represent the families I want to continue to help. The families that FLIP serves have been through much hardship, and like my artifact, they still have a lot of love for each other and others who are willing to help them. It breaks my heart to know that families with children just like me or younger have to experience such hardship at such a young age. Working with this amazing group of peers over the past ten weeks, although it does break my heart, only inspires me more to continue to serve these families to help end their hardship or at least put a smile on their faces.
Abella Cathey
Hello, my name is Abella Cathey. For my visual artifact I found pictures I had taken this year of brightly colored flowers. For my Project Good I am a part of a team called Community Garden (Operation Salsa), where we are working on making a garden and growing vegetables and herbs and a whole bunch of stuff. So far we have done research about farming and food, been on a couple tours of farms, cleaned up our area of the garden, made a compost pile, and have laid down some cover crop, compost, and manure over our garden area. We are also working on making garden beds, have an interview set up, have had great conversations and meetings, and more to come! For one of our virtual meetings we decided to watch a documentary called Kiss The Ground about soil health and climate change. After I watched that documentary, I felt many things. I felt inspired, sad, scared, disappointed, and moved to do something. Kiss The Ground is such a good documentary and I think everyone should watch it. I chose this moment as my artifact because it was such an eye opening thing to watch, hear and just feel. I cried because I was sad, because I was scared, and because our planet is so beautiful. I watched it for the first time by myself which was really nice to have a genuine reaction without distractions. On my T-Popper I have animals, outdoors, travel and more as my passions and interests. These three I think relate best because they relate to climate change and keeping the world healthy. I care deeply about animals and they are really being affected by climate change right now. I love the outdoors. Breathing fresh air and looking at all the beauty around me, but as we continue to do nothing we won’t be able to breathe fresh air or see much beauty outside anymore. I also love to travel and be able to experience different landscapes, views, and creatures but in the future I don’t see that being a possibility. I want things to get better, we need things to get better. We all need to care about this issue now because if we don’t we will be too late. Thanks.
Aiden Howell
My name is Aiden Howell, and I’m in my second year with Lab51. During Mission Lab, we try to spend time giving back to the community in small groups. In one of my Mission Lab projects, our group decorated windows of local businesses. I think this is a perfect example of doing good for the community. I have a vision statement that includes “watching myself and the people around me spread positivity,” so I chose a photo of our window painting project to be my digital artifact. My artifact shows how students can go out into the community and make something positive that people of Boise will be able to see everyday. This artwork has been put up around several different businesses in Boise. We hope this will inspire other people to go out and make positive changes, in ways that they are able. Even though I didn’t personally apply paint to the window, I thought it was so cool to see all of the teams go out into the city to paint windows for these businesses. I think that if you are passionate about something, then you should do what you can to get yourself involved in it because there is no better feeling than spreading something that you care about. I also think it is important to be the good that you want to see in the world, otherwise the things you want to see change may never get solved because there is no one willing to step up and make themselves be heard. My challenge to others is: the next time you feel really passionate about a problem, be the one that is willing to step up and make a change, even if the outcome is small.
Aiden Riff
My name is Aiden Riff, and I’m a DLab student at One Stone. I have been working on the United Nation’s Global Goal number 14 in my DLab. I have learned so many new things about the ocean and the harm towards the ocean in my research these last 10 weeks. Maz, James, and I had an interview that really had me at a loss of words. We sat and talked with Mike Malterre for about an hour. We talked about Stream to Sea, which is the company Mike founded has been working with for the past few years. It hurts me to see that billions of people are using products that affect their health and the ocean. I would like to spread the word about how the products they use affect their bodies, and show us all what we can use instead. Our interview with Mike really had me stunned, but also gave me the motivation I needed to keep working and pursuing this project. I learned that Mike has tried so hard to show people that they are affecting the reefs. He has had famous people talk about his product, he has tried talking to the people that monitor the reefs, and they have done little to nothing. I have learned that the reefs, which provide about significant amounts of our oxygen are dying, and if we do nothing about it, they may be drastically diminished in about 50-100 years. I have learned things that have changed my perspective on what I do and how I do things. I would like to work on this project for this next term and see if I can make a difference. Right now, this is what being the Good is to me.
Alec Batten
My name is Alec Batten and my why statement is “to pursue relationship so that I may live courageously for the brokenhearted.” My artifact is a short summary of my Y-lab project, which is a project to address math anxiety. I have spent hours this year researching math anxiety, so I am sharing an artifact that is representative of some of my work. My artifact is a reflection of my efforts to understand and begin to address math anxiety. I see my Y-lab project as something that helps me intentionally pursue relationships with others in empathy based work, so that I may create a solution that helps people in their brief moments of “brokenhearted-ness” during math anxiety. I also think that this artifact represents the growth and exploration I have had throughout the past ten weeks. I have gone through a lot of emotion and craziness in life throughout the past ten weeks, but I have put a lot of work into defining my future and the way I impact the world. This reflection represents the effort and personal development that I have experienced. For me, there is a faith based explanation of good and a practical explanation of good. Practically, doing good to me really means living out of love. It means truly caring for others even if you get nothing in return.
Alex Kline
Hi!! I am Alexandria Kline, a Lab51 student and Board member. Throughout my time at One Stone, I have come up with the vision statement “Adding new layers to who I am.” This was inspired by digging into my passions, interests, and curiosities and sorting them into themes: Desire to Grow, Deeper Understanding, Making an Impact, and Connections. The one theme that really resonated with me and where I am at in my journey was desire to grow. What doing Good means to me is using your passions, interests, or curiosities to make an impact in your community. Doing Good makes you feel fulfilled by helping others. An experience this fall that reflects how I do Good is my work at the Boys and Girls club. My buddy, Andrew, is the cutest kindergartener ever. The first day I met him we had brought cardboard to create visual spaces. I asked him what he liked and he immediately said Thomas the Train with so much excitement. We created a cardboard train world with a tunnel, a mechanic station, and many trees. We went outside and all the other kids were playing soccer and Andrew asked to lay down and look at the clouds. I found this very interesting and it really helped me see who he was. I left that first day feeling so happy. I initially was annoyed to be taking time out of my school work to go hang out with these kids but Andrew completely changed my perspective. Honestly, I think Andrew was doing more Good for me than I was doing for him. The next two weeks were very beneficial for me. We created another train world, a Thomas puppet, and played in the snow. Andrew inspired me to apply his creativity and curiosity to my immersion work. For my artifact I represented mentorship by making a cardboard train world similar to the ones Andrew and I have made. I learned so much from Andrew and I am so excited to share this artifact.
Alex Pellegrini
My name is Alex Pellegrini, and I’m in my first year at Lab51. To me, doing good means using one’s talents to connect with and serve the community. I believe that if I can show people something new and teach them about it (like ham radio and cybersecurity), then a personal connection can be formed in a genuine and meaningful way. My artifact is a picture of me with a smoke jumper who was working on a fire near Yellow Pine, Idaho. This fall I went to Yellow Pine and assisted the fire department in programming their radios. Their radios were unable to use a particular service. I programmed the radios to use a service that they otherwise could only have gotten by buying different radios. The project didn’t take me too long, but I felt like part of the team and fulfilled in being able to apply my passion to real-world problems. In the past 10 weeks, I have explored various other real-world problems and challenges at One Stone. I’ve had the opportunity to learn video game programming, practice 3D graphic design, work on improving STEM education, and try to improve people’s use of clean energy. I feel fortunate to work with and be part One Stone’s army of good to use my talents and passions to help others.
Alivea Clark
I am Clark and I am in D-Lab in the Lab51 program. I believe in leaving pieces of yourself wherever you go, and I love to do this through gifting my art. This art is typically things like drawings and sewing projects but has additions that span all sorts of mediums. I think being good can never truly be defined since it is seen differently through every mind that has ever stopped and thought about it. To some it may be something like spending the day with someone you love. For someone else it could be a shared slice of an orange at a lunch table (the most shareable food in my opinion). It could be a kind word spoken to you just when you need it, rescuing a kitten from a tree, or scooping worms off the sidewalk after the rain has fallen. It may be the last sunny day of the season seemingly gifted from the heavens or giving yourself a small vote of confidence to get yourself through your day. In any of these cases the theme that I found was that whether intended or not we are better from having these things in our life. My artifact shows a bit of kindness to myself in the way that it’s creation made me smile for it’s duration while I got to imagine the lives of my image’s residents. This artifact relates to One Stone because One Stone is the place that allowed me to meet some wonderful people that lead me to my passion for drawing. I have left bits of myself by gifting these people in my life the art they have inspired me to make, especially in these last 10 weeks. I hope that possibly this drawing might inspire something in someone else, and then maybe they’ll find good things in their lives too.
Allison Pelton
As I spend my last year at One Stone thinking about where to go next, I wonder what will happen to my vision statement, “Treasuring the Valley”. My college choices all involve leaving the Boise area, which can feel like abandonment of my vision. I don’t want to feel trapped either. A changing vision is a sign of growth, not something to discourage. Reconciliation of these feelings has defined this semester and led to insight on both my own values and how to respect others as individuals. For my artifact, I wrote a poem. This poem ties together for me the concepts of community and individual. In it, I admit that I am personally affected by my immediate community more strongly than distant communities. Currently, one of my immediate communities is the Treasure Valley. Having so much time to myself has allowed me to realize that my vision statement was never literal; it meant uplifting any communities I am a part of. Sometimes you hurt someone, and there’s nothing that can be done to fix it. Accepting this is the only way to move on. It’s not possible to please everyone. Even a “perfect” person is an antagonist in someone’s life story, intentionally or not. No one is to blame for this fact of life. Sometimes inaction is just the best way forward.
Amanda Mansfield
Hi, I’m Amanda. I am passionate about all things beauty, all things equality, environmental health, and the flawed education system. My vision statement is “Good intention isn’t held by the sun or moon”. This means that almost nothing is black and white and it’s important to explore multiple perspectives and ideas. It’s also important to look into how not everything suits everybody and the way to solve a problem is to realize there’s not one solution. My artifact is a sketch of a person being carried into an ambulance. The sketch represents what could happen to someone who is uneducated on the negative effects that drugs can cause, which connects to my passion on how the education system is flawed. Seeing the cycle that substance abuse creates breaks my heart. It’s so sad to me that when someone was raised around substance abuse they’re most likely to misuse substances as well - it’s simply the only way they’ve been taught to deal with their issues. I wish that there was a way to break this cycle because overdose seems inevitable when people are addicted. This artifact represents what breaks my heart because to me it holds representation of negative cycles. I strongly believe that your family’s past shouldn’t have to determine your future. I’m passionate about breaking those negative cycles and helping an individual prosper. Over these past 10 weeks I learned that I have the ability to become passionate about almost any problem.
Asher Horseman
For my final project in my second immersion at Lab 51, The Sound of Music, I made my own song in Logic Pro X, (The production software we were taught about in the immersion) using the skills I had learned about in the software during the immersion. This process began with me just picking up on the basic skills in the software, to grasp enough knowledge to start playing along with things like different instruments, pre-recorded loops, drum beats, and more. I ended up scrapping my project several times for different reasons. Maybe it wasn’t interesting, or maybe I just didn’t like it. Coming up with catchy melodies to start off a song is harder than I anticipated, and I think this helped me connect more empathetically with musical artists that have been doing this kind of thing for decades. Once I did find that melody however, I found that the rest of the song wasn’t too difficult to think up. I did struggle on certain parts sometimes, but coming through in the end was a goal I strived for, and succeeded to reach in the end. I found that this is a lot harder thing to create than I first anticipated, but in the end, I’m proud of my first song I made, and hopefully there will be more inspirations for songwriting for me in the future.
Ashleigh Cisario
My name is Ashleigh, and I’m in my final year at One Stone. I’m very passionate about music and creating things. My Why statement is “to inspire others to question the status quo in order to empower individuality, encourage creativity, and promote equality.” I feel most like myself when I’m immersed in music. Whether I’m playing or watching, music has always been part of who I am. For my artifact, I created a video and voice over of my experience playing music at a retirement home. This was for the Play On Immersion from this fall when a group of One Stone students played about 45 minutes of music for a group of older people in our community. When I think of what it means to do Good, it means to go out of your way to make someone's day better or to do something that you know will make them happy. This experience was so rewarding because I got to see the smiles on these people's faces while sharing music with them. I think they loved to see young people playing music from their generation. I grew up very close with my grandparents and they both encouraged me to get into music from a young age. Visiting the retirement home reminded me of how happy grandma gets when I play her favorite songs. Bringing live music to this group was important to me right now because quarantine has limited people's ability to see live music. Making people happy with my music is one of the most rewarding feelings, and I want to inspire others to share their creations with community members. I think it's important to do Good for all people in your life, and this experience has made me want to continue playing music for people and doing something special for my community.
Athena Thomas
My name is Athena Thomas, and something that breaks my heart is the fact that there are victims and survivors of abuse. It’s something that unfortunately I grew up learning about first hand, and I want to minimize the amount of abuse through education. Doing good to me is going out of your way to make someone’s life better. Whether that be a cookie on a bad day, or adopting a child with a terminal condition. This piece of art is a genderless (abuse is genderless, anyone can be an abuser and anyone can be abused) silhouette with a red heart for self love, purple throat for voice, and a blue mind for knowledge. All of these things are from interviews with abuse survivors, connecting with the topic of my YLab - abusive relationships They talked about how they gained self love, their own voice back, and life knowledge after experiencing abuse. I chose to make the heart red, because red is a common color associated with love. I made the brain blue, because that’s the color I think goes with knowledge. I made the throat purple because that’s the color associated with the battered women’s movement in the early 1900’s.
