What To Do With 683 Solo Cups

The beloved librarian at Kellen and Ammy's school, Mr. Hallett, has leukemia. Things have not been looking good and he was in a coma for two weeks. To help raise money for the family, the PTA has been selling wristbands with the message "TEAM HALLETT" on them with all of the proceeds going directly to his family. In addition, a group of kids and parents have been meeting before school to hold prayer services twice a week. The day after the first prayer service, he opened his eyes. He is still critically ill, but he has been alert and recognizing people this past week.

Tonight was our back to school picnic and we decided to put a message on the fence at the school. When someone asked how to do it, I suggested that we use solo cups to write the message. I spent hours trying to figure out how to design the sign. I cut out letters and traced them on graph paper. Only problem is that graph paper doesn't match chain link fence. I found axonometric graph paper online and was able to have something that resembled the fence at school.

I tried cutting and tracing letters again, but was left with the issue of what to do with a square that was half full. I then went to a site that sells fence cups for the purpose of fence displays (very, very cool). They had the alphabet online that they use to design what you want to say and I printed it out. Then I copied it onto my axonometic graph paper.

Then we started putting the cups into the fence.

We had to stop at this point because The Baltimore Sun paper was coming to take pictures of us working on the fence. They are working on a story about Mr. Hallett.

The fence with all 683 solo cups and Chico, "the flat mannequin" dressed as a Team Hallett member. Chico just happened to be in my car from an event two weeks ago, so we dressed him up and attached him to the fence.

At each of the prayer services, the kids have been writing their prayers onto popsicle sticks. The sticks were then decorated and a hole was drilled into the top of each of them.

One of the PTA members threaded all the sticks with ribbon and we tied the kids' prayer sticks to the fence around Team Hallett.

Tonight at the picninc, people had the opportunity to write a prayer on a stick and hang it up on the fence.

The kids' messages were so cute!

Some of the kids around the Team Hallett fence.

Go here to check on Mr. Hallett. The article should be in the paper tomorrow or Sunday. I will post the link as soon as I receive it.