Madeline-3/4/09-Materials for the Arts

Our most recent visit to materials for the arts was our first working visit.  We left school at 2:45 to get there promptly at 3:30.  This time we had a new member to our group, Lucy.  Before we got there we filled her in on what Materials for the Arts was like, what they did, and what we would be doing.  We took the V train to Long Island City and walked a block from the subway station to arrive at Materials for the Arts.  We took the elevator up to the third floor and walked down the long hallway into the MFTA warehouse.  When we were inside we walked down the long walkway passing rows and rows of shelves stacked with art and office supplies.  At the end of the warehouse we got to the office to meet Johnese, the volunteer coordinator.  We all signed in the time we arrived and the time we arrived and the time we left.  Then we put down our stuff and she took us out into the warehouse where there were big yellow bins.  In the bins were huge tangled piles of unwanted jewelry.  It had all been donated by American Eagle.  Our job was to take big chunks of jewelry, not detangle it completely because that would have been close to impossible.  We then put the chunks into small plastic bags.  There was another volunteer named Erin who had been working there for a week.  She was doing the same thing we were.  Her and Johnese were giving us different ideas for a project we could do with the recycled jewelry.  We came up with an idea that we could give people a bag of random materials and see what they make out of it.  Erin was also telling us about her friends that get all there food from dumpsters in the back of restaurants.  The food they eat isn’t half eaten sandwiches or rotten fruit, it’s still packaged items that have expired a few days but are still okay to eat.  This is a good way of using and eating the food that other places are wasting.  The time went by very quickly and before we knew it it was 5 o’clock.  After thanking Johnese we left Materials for the Arts.  We got on the only train that was at that station assuming it would take us back to school.  We passed many stops, until we finally realized that we were going farther and farther into Queens.  We ran off the train on the next stop, so we could turn around.  The doors closed a little sooner than we thought they would and Lucy, Sadie, and Surayya were safely on the platform, while I remained on the train.  We didn’t really know the neighborhood or the trains so I don’t know what we would have done if the doors hadn’t opened a second time.  Even though that was a little scary, overall this last trip to Materials for the Arts was a great experience.erin.jpgjewelry.jpgmfta.jpg

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