For my capstone, I created a website. Well I did a little more than that. I started out with volunteering at my old elementary school once a week for three hours. Since January, I have been there every Wednesday, helping with homework and facilitating activities. Along with teaching kids, I branched out a little. I wanted my project to be about my neighborhood as a whole. I decided to conduct interviews with people that are very influential in my community and well educated in mutual aid. I asked them questions about the non profits and organizations they work with, and how they have helped to build a strong neighborhood. Then, I brought it all together on a website. The website contains quotes from my interviews along with my own writing about my neighborhood, elementary school, and mutual aid. Without mutual aid, healthy communities cannot exist, because they require systems in place to provide help if something goes wrong. Communities that are capable of self sustaining are more equipped to thrive.

I started by thinking of an idea that related to my hobbies/interests. I knew I wanted to do something that related to gardening as an idea for my capstone. I kept narrowing my thoughts down and eventually thought of the name for my capstone, SLA’s Sky Garden. I went from wanting to have a garden on SLA’s rooftop to having a greenhouse where anyone could grow plants to gift them to whoever they wanted. I started planting seeds so they could sprout and get people’s attention so they would be asking around about the plants. As the plants matured more people started asking me about them, I told them they were welcome to plant anything they’d like. I received full funding from Braskem so I could proceed with my project the way I wanted. I bought a greenhouse that fit the rooftop the best and asked my friends if they could help me assemble it. After it was assembled I moved in my extra supplies and plants. I was aware that I wouldn’t be able to continue maintaining the greenhouse next year so I approached a junior student who told me they wanted their capstone to be kind of like mine, relating to plants. I offered them the opportunity to base their capstone on mine and they agreed. My final addition to this project is a sign explaining the rules and steps people can take to successfully grow plants.

For my capstone, I decided to do a “photo shoot” of my friends wearing pieces of clothing and jewelry that showed the evolution and impact of African American culture on the world today. This was a self-discovery for me because I do not know much about African American culture myself and I feel as though this is something I should know especially since deciding to go to an HBCU for college. I had to do a lot of research on things that came from African American culture not just from today but from years back also and see how it had/has an impact on the world and its influences throughout history. I learned a lot about the original meanings behind some clothing and how the black community decided to change the meaning by embracing them. I believe a lot of people are ignorant of the impact African American culture has given the world and it’s not their own fault. So for this project, I had to find my “ models” aka my friends and find jewelry and clothes that black women from the late 90s and early 2000s use to wear and then talk about what those pieces represented back then and how some women turned the bad dehumanizing meanings behind certain pieces of jewelry into the uplifting, encouraging and powerful symbols that they are today. The biggest surprise and most interesting thing that I learned throughout all of this was about the meaning behind hoop earrings and how much that meaning has changed today. Now you see everyone rocking big gold and silver hoops but not everyone knows that back then it would be a disgrace to walk outside with them on.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JoeN2mtZN98cCJf2iQn1vp2GhDKq9NZxQzC93_mb6L4/edit?usp=sharing