Outdoor Accessibility Fall 2021- Spring 2022

During the fall of 2021, Project Good students identified a lot of problems in our community. The Outdoor Accessibility group chose to work on the problem of what accessibility to the outdoors means for our community.

The group ideated about different problems in outdoor accessibility, and a few groups formed as a result of the ideation sessions. One of the smaller groups decided to focus on outdoor accessibility for horseback riders. As they looked around the community for a problem relating to this, they changed directions slightly after discovering that there were other problems that needed help.

The issue they found was about an area of untouched open space facing the possibility of becoming an industrial park. This was a problem because it would affect a lot of peoples houses, hobbies, passions, and interests. The industrial park would make it unsafe for the Western Riding Club, the native wildlife, and the air quality. They went on many site visits and reached out to the Boise Open Space Alliance (BOSA) where they had an interview with the leader, Gregg Russell. 

They came away from the interview with the idea of speaking at a public hearing concerning the proposal of CAR-00037. The group then spent multiple weeks creating the testimonies they would share. As the date approached, some of the team sent in testimonies, some of them spoke online, and some went in person. The hearing was very informative and they learned a lot about the issue while getting to share their own opinions and seeing the local community's reaction. 

Their next step was testifying at the final hearing and spreading the word to other people about how they can write their own testimonies. Although the other hearing got postponed, they still shared the poster they made about the topic with the rest of Project Good.

Suicide Prevention Fall 2021- Spring 2022

The Suicide Prevention team formed with a small group consisting of Meghan, Tyler and Mattie. They began by researching existing organizations and resources aimed at supporting people with suicidal thoughts, as well as conducting understanding exercises. The team found it hard, especially at first, to speak about suicide – it’s a challenging topic and their comfort level with it was low. However, this was a topic that the team felt extremely passionate about, and so they persevered. 

The team then reached out to the Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline and got connected with who would eventually become their community partner: Becca Waste, an ISPH volunteer and Boise State graduate student interested in working with youth. The team found her interview very insightful, and several other connections resulted from this interview. Becca provided valuable insight and empathy surrounding suicide, and gave the team access to resources that currently exist for people experiencing this issue. 

The team also reached out to the Boise Hive, a local non-profit music studio whose mission is to reduce suicide among musicians in the Boise community. The team took a tour of the Boise Hive, which provides safe, substance-free environments to practice and perform music, as well as mental health services for local musicians.

Thanks to the team’s connection with the ISPH, they learned about an opportunity with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival’s public performances of Romeo and Juliet. Because youth suicide is prominent in the story, it felt important to include the ISPH as a professional resource to facilitate discussion and support after the show. 

The Suicide Prevention team was offered the chance to contribute to the program for the show. The opportunity arose to include teen voices in the conversation, and the team decided to use that voice to collaborate with the ISPH on a comic that illustrated the role of the Hotline, and de-stigmatizing the use of it. 

This comic was distributed at local showings of the play, and impacted the audience by the intentional inclusion of this prevalent issue in our community. The team is grateful for the time they spent on this project, and the knowledge, empathy, and insight that will now be applied to their lives because of it.

A Shatter that Matters Fall 2021- Spring 2022

How Might We create a supportive environment for people to feel safe and welcome so people know they aren’t alone while understanding that topics surrounding mental health can be stressful.

The mental health team began our empathy in Fall of 2021. We met with multiple therapists and psychiatrists in order to totally grasp the effect of mental health on our community. Our interests naturally flowed toward teens, as that is the group we can empathize with and understand the most. Internally, we had many vulnerable conversations on how mental health has affected our lives whether it was diagnosed illnesses or everyday stressors. We came to the conclusion that we may not be able to entirely change the mental health of teens in Boise from the root, but we could certainly address it in smaller ways. During ideation, we gathered data on what people do to cope with their mental health. The answers ranged from going on walks in nature, to spending time with their loved ones, to pursuing their passions like sports, writing, or art. A lot of us agreed that we just needed some kind of outlet, and A Shatter That Matters was born. Based on the idea of a break room, we researched how breaking and destroying everyday objects could be a huge release for teens. They could spend time with friends, laugh, and be more wild than in any other place. 

However, a few members of the team hadn’t quite settled on the break room. They wanted to impact the general downtown Boise population and were inspired by gift giving. One member of the team received flowers and both the recipient and the person who gave them felt more happy afterwards. Flowers are obviously a small gesture, but they represent a lot and can brighten almost anybody's day. Two team members decided to incorporate this act of kindness into the project and prototyped on their own and the results were beautiful. One woman on the street even cried and admitted that she had just ended a relationship. Back at HQ, we ideated on flowers and decided to combine them with short inspirational notes. These messages had to be applicable to everyone and we spent time creating these one sentence phrases so that they could be the most effective. After finding a source for flowers, the Flower Power team was born. 

For the implementation process, our team, Mental Health, hosted a Shatter That Matters and another event called Flower Power.

A Shatter That Matters was a breakroom that was hosted at One Stone, and the project Flower Power was when many people wrote kind notes on flowers and headed downtown to give them out to many different people. Our team did not partner with anyone for either of these events.

Throughout our interviews we learned that many teens struggle with mental health along with other people in the Downtown Boise area. For experimentation, our team went to a breakroom in Nampa called Hammertime.  While there we were able to discover which items were the best to break along with learning if it did actually work towards our goal of allowing people to express their anger freely and think about other better coping mechanisms they may have or could create.

When we hosted the Flower Power event there were around 245 different recipients of the project and it seemed to have a larger impact. When we hosted the breakroom around only 15 people attended. However, they all said that they were greatly impacted by the event.

For the breakroom to happen, many of our team members went out to ask various companies for anything breakable that was not of any use to them. We ended up getting very lucky with knowing some very generous people. We mainly got our breakables from Second Chance, the Record Exchange, and Boise Art Glass. This was where the majority of our inventory came from aside from One Stone itself. We are all very appreciative of all the glass we were able to obtain.

Fast Facts Sheet

Year(s): Fall 2021- spring 22

Focus: Mental health 

Recipients: Teenagers, downtown boise population 

Number of recipients: 250

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 13

Number of additional One Stone members that helped with implementation: 150

Number of weeks of planning: ~5

How many hours it took to implement: ~14 total

Fruit Basket Fall 2021- Spring 2022

How might we find and create safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ under 21 in Boise.

Fruit Basket is a group of teenagers associated with the LGBTQIA+ community whose goal is to find and create safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ under 21 throughout Boise. 

This Project Good team came together because we shared a concern for the safety of people in the LGBTQIA+ community. We started by having conversations about the topic together and then moved into the empathy stage of the design thinking process. The team reached out to many people that work to create safe spaces in the community like the owner of the Balcony and a stylist at Mullet Proof. After this, the team narrowed their focus to creating a safe space for younger people in the community. We wanted to create a longer lasting impact so we decided to plan multiple events. 

From many brainstorming sessions came the outcome of our project, hosting a LGBTQIA+ based movie night at One Stone Headquarters. The event included snacks, games, fun conversations, as well as a showing  of the movie called “The Half of It”.

Fruit Basket also hosted a clothing drive at One Stone HQ in partnership with Brick House Recovery. We collected an estimated $500 worth of clothes for the LGBTQIA+ community. 

Fast Fact Sheet

Year(s): Fall 2021 - Spring 2022

Focus: LGBTQIA+ Community

Recipients: Members of the LGBTQIA+ community 

Community partner: Brick House Recovery

Number of recipients: 25

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 15

Number of weeks of planning: 30

How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: 20

How many hours it took to implement: 6

Community Garden Fall 2021- Spring 2022

Treasure Valley Community Garden Cooperative and One Stone’s Project Good developed the Community Garden, hosted at St. Stephens Episcopal Church. The goal of the team was to create opportunities for food accessibility through gardening. This project is in its second year as a space for growing food, connection to the community, and skills in gardening. The landowner, St Stephens Episcopal church, donated land to the project and have been welcoming and kind, allowing the team to use the garden space and donating funds by paying for the water. The team started working on food accessibility through gardening after a large group had identified the connection between the lack of the ability to grow fresh fruits and vegetables and food deserts. The team interviewed people who were connected to St. Stephen’s Church, and gained insight into how the church could benefit from using excess land to benefit neighbors. 

Furthermore, engaging in gardening at all has been an “eye-opening experience” - the labor involved, the challenges of making time to actually grow food, the knowledge base required, and the resources that are needed - and all of the components to a successful urban farm should not be taken lightly.  When interviewing an employee of the Boise Urban Garden School, the team learned that there are various considerations to be made when attempting to bridge food shortages through providing produce, gardening or cooking classes. The team learned that the intended beneficiary needs to be drawn to the program or they won’t engage.

The most amazing community partner is Mary K Johnson, who kindly facilitated the garden in a myraid of ways. She helped with every aspect of the garden, taught us how to garden, empowered our ownership of the space, gave the team guidance, encouragement, resources, and donated hundreds of hours to ensure that this project was successful. Her vision has manifested in the garden that the team lovingly cares for. 

The main objective for the team over this past year was to cultivate and maintain the community garden. This included cultivating one of the sections of our land using hugelkultur rows where you dig a trench, fill it with compostable materials, and then pile the dirt back on to create garden beds that feed the plants and promote good soil drainage. This was one of the many methods we implemented to improve the soil health of the land there. The team always kept ourselves busy while we were at the garden, maintaining our compost pile, weeding the rows, and also developing a closer relationship with the church. At the end of the season these efforts proved to give back to us because we had a very fruitful harvest including 300lbs of tomatoes. With the food we grew, a group of our team members prepared food for the Boise Kitchen Collective. 

The garden has grown leaps and bounds in this past school year. With the assistance of the entire One Stone community we have gone from a couple rows of infertile soil to an almost entirely tilled quarter acre space complete with irrigation, hugel mounds, compost, and more! The Community Garden project has been learning directly from passionate farmers like Mary K and then using their skills as leaders to distribute that knowledge among our growing community of gardeners. This provides a powerful student learning environment, connecting people with the garden, their education, and each other. Many other people have joined this community as well such as Project MILPA which are farming heirloom corn varieties, as well as a family of African farmers. We plan to have many more people outside of One Stone join this community as well through outreach and distributing our surplus harvest for free to the community.

Boundary Buddies Fall 2021- Spring 2022

First HMW: How might we prevent child abuse? 

Adapted HMW: How might we teach young people about consent?

The Boundary Buddies team planned station rotation activities and implemented with Future Public School’s two Kindergarten classes. The series of activity-based stations focused on learning the basics of body boundaries, consent language, and self love. All kindergarteners received buttons at each station to remind them of the lessons. 

Stations: 

Activity #1  Give and Take

Students played 2 rounds of Toy Share.

In the first round, students were given a task of collecting a certain color of toys from each other. This round purposely had very little structure and few rules. The next round included some stipulations such as, asking before you take from someone and being able to decide if you want to share your item or not. 

Students practiced asking for what they would like and also communicating their own decisions. Additionally, this activity reminded the students that it is ok to share and ok to say “no thank you.” Students had a short discussion and reflection about how the activities made them feel when they were able to choose and how they wanted to share their items vs when the items were taken from them. 

Activity #2 Story Time

The team created a short, illustrated story about a kid and an alien who have some lessons to learn about consent, asking for permission, appropriate boundaries, and self compassion. The team brought sock puppets for students to use to help act out scenarios practicing consent. Students role played common scenarios and were given examples for how they can give and receive consent. 

Station #3 - I love me! 

Students worked with team members to design stickers and a worksheet.  They identified three things that they love about themselves, three people in their life that can help them, and three things they like about their friends. Through research the team found out that self love and compassion help motivate young learners to make healthy choices in life. When you hold yourself in high esteem, you’re more likely to choose things that nurture your wellbeing and serve you well. 

Station #4 - Body Boundaries

The team talked about personal space bubbles and why it is important to respect personal body bubbles. Students drew their own bubble with their fingers and used hula hoops to help define their individual bubbles and boundaries. They discussed what it feels like when your bubble is popped and how to ask for more space when someone is in your bubble. They also talked about the importance of respect for ourselves and others. Students left this activity with an understanding of personal space and respecting other’s personal space. 

The entire project took about 60 minutes to complete per each classroom. 

Fast Facts Sheet

Year(s): Fall 2021 - Spring 2022

Focus: Consent and a proactive approach to child abuse

Recipients: Kindergarten students

Community partner: Future Public School

Number of recipients: 45

Addiction to Fighting Addiction Team (AFTA)- Fall 2021- Spring 2022

How might we influence connection for those suffering from addiction within the population served by Interfaith Sanctuary, knowing that a lack of connection is a main component of relapse?

The Addicted to Fighting Addiction Team (ATFA) was formed through a shared social and emotional connection to the harsh reality of addiction. This team was driven by heartbreak and purpose and formed their mission statement through this. It states, “Addiction is a symptom of a loss of connection. Our mission is to find that connection.” The team did just that. After ideating and partnering with local shelter, Interfaith Sanctuary, the team planned to implement a connection event including food, games, and no mention of addiction. 

This implementation impacted 20 individuals who reside at Interfaith Sanctuary in Project Recovery (Interfaiths' Addiction Program). The team worked with the residents to establish connection, provide support, and enjoy a meal with the individuals involved. The team and residents played games, ate pasta and cookies, and connected with the community that Interfaith has to offer. This event accomplished the team's HMW by putting connection first and treating every person like they mattered. Not labeling them as addicts but rather as new connections.  

The team’s most impactful empathy experience was an interview with the Executive Director of Interfaith Sanctuary, Jodi Stigers, who became the team's community partner. This interview not only helped the members land on the direction of the project but also the humanized side of the issue. Other large takeaways were that connection is at the heart of all healing, addiction is a lifelong disease that can affect anyone, and that with addiction comes relapse.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 19.7 million American adults (aged 12 and older) battled a substance use disorder in 2017 and according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, drug overdose deaths rose from 2019 to 2020 with 91,799 drug overdose deaths reported in 2020. Learning facts like this motivated the team to work hard to have an impact in our community. 

• The ATFA group conducted 6 empathy interviews and went on two site visits. On our first visit with the local homeless population, we connected with a few different groups of people. We shared a meal and games on our final outing to Interfaith Sanctuary, who connected us with 20 residents.

• In addition to receiving gratitude from the residents at Interfaith Sanctuary, Matt, the Director of Project Recovery, shared his gratitude for our visit. He noticed the empathy and connection we led with in meeting the residents. This is his final email to us:

 “It was such a pleasure having you here. Our programmers felt really special having their own special dinner and playing the awesome games you guys brought. Please thank Jenn for being so flexible and accommodating as we figured out on the fly the best way to set up and serve dinner. The students were so incredibly sweet to our guests, and they really made them feel like they were special people who deserved a little extra lovin'. 

"I'm really excited to follow up on this and see how our organizations can collaborate on other fun events! Please feel free to contact me directly at the number below in my e-signature with any questions or just to brainstorm something new we can cooperate on!”

• We met one resident on our visit, an artist, that was close to gaining housing after spending 20 years fighting addiction. She spoke openly about overcoming a meth, heroine, and alcohol addiction and how important Project Recovery’s community is to her sobriety. She explained how she would still attend daily sessions to maintain connection.

Fast Facts Sheet

Year(s): Fall 2021 - Spring 2022

Focus: Addiction/Substance use and Abuse/ connection

Recipients: Residents at interfaith Sanctuary

Community partner: Interfaith Sanctuary

Number of recipients: 20

Number of One Stone members involved in planning: 13

Number of weeks of planning: 30

How many hours it took to prepare for implementation: 4

How many hours it took to implement: 3

Blooming Beauties Fall 2021- Spring 2022

How might we support 3rd to 5th grade young women in growing their awareness of their bodies and celebrating their physical and mental health.

Starting off with this topic, our team took time to share their own experiences on what body image meant to them personally and conducted many empathy conversations and interviews in order to find direction. 

From there, the team began interviewing various experts in the field including local body positivity expert, Amy Pence-Brown. Everyone left that interview in awe, totally inspired by Amy’s journey and mission. 

“Thank you SO MUCH for coming out and making the day so special for some of our Girls on the Run yesterday at the 5K. I really appreciate you being a running buddy, making the fun tutus, etc. I heard so many positive comments from our families, and want you to know that it was noticed. ”

— Toni from Girls on the Run

Although the group really loved the topic, everyone felt a bit lost on who might be an end-user. One of the team leaders, Izzy, then came up with an amazing opportunity with Girls on the Run (GOTR). The group visited a GOTR practice at Hillcrest Elementary School and had some very surprising insights visiting with the girls. They learned that GOTR was much more about positivity in general than athleticism or running. Based on this enthusiasm for working with this group of third to fifth grade girls participating in GOTR, the team brainstormed a multitude of ideas for implementation. During this period of ideation, the group visited Ophidia Studio to do a team aerial yoga and pole fitness bonding session leaving the team with a renewed passion and excitement for implementation. 

They decided to host a booth at the Girls On the Run 5K featuring handmade tutus, bracelets with encouraging words, and temporary tattoos. All of these were meant to inspire body positivity in the participants. The group implemented their booth on May 21, 2022 at Kleiner Park in Meridian, ID, and it was a huge hit! They handed out 200 tutus, 130 encouraging word bracelets, 200 temporary tattoos, and held 12 encouraging signs for about three hours. There were 550 girls in attendance at the annual 5k, which had not taken place in nearly three years. The huge smiles received made everyone feel like they  had made a difference. We are so thankful for the impact our team has made in the local community.

Fast Facts Sheet

Years: Fall 2021-2022

Focus:  Body positivity/body image

Recipients: Elementary age girls - 3rd - 5th grade

Community partners: Girls on the Run

Number of recipients: ~550 girls ran 

Number of One Stone members involved in planning:

10 students (in the end)

2 Coaches

Number of additional One Stone members that helped with implementation

Whole PG Group helped us make some tutus and word bracelets one meeting

Number of weeks of planning: 8

How many hours it took to implement: 3 hours

200 tutus

130 word bracelets

200 temporary tattoos

12 encouraging signs