The Makerspace hosted Santa’s Workshop on December 4th, and the event was a raging success. Approximately 90 students were served and they made well over 400 gifts for friends and family. There were so many smiles, and an exceptional amount of joy in the room and hallways that night!
There were 13 stations, each staffed by a department, club, or organization, and the ideas this year were great – classic ornament painting to hydrodipping and even felt flowers on dowels.
A huge thank you goes out to Residence Life, Rylie Tourtellott, Quirin Stoeckl, Allie and Sam Borawski, Amanda Bauer, Lynette Johnson, Tami Lubinski, Judd Botcher, Katie Pierpont, Tricia Klosky, Suzette Alvarez, Joe Justman, the business office, student central, and the IT department for running the stations to make this happen.
Also, a special thank you to the following people who helped get the event off the ground:
Terra Lieser was amazing over the past few weeks, handling ordering, working with each station to prepare and test their items, and bringing an enthusiastic approach to all the coordination that needed to happen. She is the one who makes all the complexity look easy and we owe her a debt of gratitude for being amazing.
Terra of course got help from our interns, Priyanka Satish, Alyssa Jones, and Itunu Okusanya and our future intern, Connor Beutin, who each went above and beyond, working extra hours the last few days, and in general keeping the wheels moving as we completely transformed the space into the festive workshop the event needed.
The entire maintenance team for all they did getting us setup and helping us recover from our adventures together. At every turn, they were asking what they could do to contribute and it was greatly appreciated by all of us at the Institute.
Finally, we would like to thank our sponsors, donors, and contributors who make this event possible. Without their support and encouragement this kind of event would not be possible.
Happy holidays from the Makerspace, and we can’t wait to see you again next year for Santa’s workshop!
