Monday, April 7, 2008

The Mysteries of Beaver: The Bloomberg Benches

MADDY KIEFER ‘08

During spring break, the school underwent a minor transformation. Walls were painted, mailboxes suddenly had numbers, and there were these random decorated benches in the Bloomberg Plaza. One honors the Patriots, one honors the Red Sox, one depicts Fenway Park and one proclaims “Curse Reversed.” At first, I thought that some art class might have painted them. After looking twice though, I figured that, as good as our art program might be, none of our students are quite that talented. So where did they come from?

It turns out that, at the suggestion of parent Peter Schneider, Beaver purchased them from a nonprofit organization called Seats of Consciousness. The idea goes back to when Nancy Johnson (director of Fair Foods, a company affiliated with Seats of Consciousness) noticed the waste of materials such as wood and paint from large companies like Home Depot. Instead of letting these materials go to waste, she decided to recycle them by creating benches and tables and selling them to fund her organization. Since 1988, Fair Foods has transported truckloads of food to low-income communities in Massachusetts, and buying these four benches has helped fund that cause.

The reaction so far seems to be positive, and Mr. Hutton says, “We may order more in the future for different areas of the campus.”

Further reading:
More information on Beaver’s new paint job and additions
Seats of Consciousness website

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, the triumphant return of the Mysteries of Beaver column! My Mondays weren't the same without it.

For one thing, our art students could definitely do that.

And as for the new numbered mailboxes, they remind me of a Jack Handey quote:

"Instead of raising your hand to ask a question in class, how about individual push buttons on each desk? That way, when you want to ask a question, you just push the button and it lights up a corresponding number on a tote board at the front of the class. Then all the professor has to do is check the lighted number against a master sheet of names and numbers to see who is asking the question."

Anonymous said...

I like benches

Anonymous said...

I was actually wondering where they came from. Thank you Maddy for solving the mystery!

Anonymous said...

"Thank you Maddy for solving the mystery!"

Eh...what mystery? Beaver blatantly told us through that article.

Can you guys please come up with a real mystery?

Anonymous said...

this was a brilliant piece of investigative journalism, MLK. Whoever disagrees should either eat their words or prove their worth in the serious business otherwise known as the beaver mysteries.

Anonymous said...

Your Beaver Mysteries are all great!
Including this one which added onto the information provided on the site.

key words: added on to

did that other article have a quote from mr. hutton? I forget.
Did it have Maddy's charm? I think not!

Anonymous said...

Here at Beaver, we try to be a welcoming community where people can share their honest opinions. But that only goes so far. I encourage you to write your own weekly column if you think you are better than Maddy is. Seriously. Go ahead. I DARE YOU.

And if you don't have the nerve, just go share your nasty opinion at the Newton North paper or something.

Anonymous said...

Dear respected-but-disgruntled Beaver reader,

When we started this column, we had many good ideas, but we decided to start with what was arguably the best. The danger--and we realized this--was that we may be setting the bar too high, and every subsequent installment would inevitably be a disappointment. Your comment shows that this was more or less correct.

We do have several interesting mysteries that we have not yet explored. However, they take significant research, and our time is limited. We absolutely aim to get around to them, but we can't do a blockbuster every week, or even every month.

Incidentally, the issue of the benches *was* a genuine mystery and something that people *were* wondering about. Many people don't read the Beaver web site, and while our readership isn't much better (if it's better at all), we thought we may be able to catch some people who missed the bcdschool.org version. And we happen to know we have. And while it's not a lot, we added some info that wasn't present in the other version.

If you have any specific suggestions for mysteries, or any specific mysteries that you can solve, we would love to hear them.

Cordially,
Me

Birwin said...

I'm a believer and always enjoy "TMoB." Everyone at the Beaver Reader is doing a great job. As mentioned in previous comments, the current mystery article added detail and a quote from the Head of School which were not present in the www.bcdschool.org article. As the person who wrote that article, I'm pleased that our various outlets (including LiveWire) can work together to improve communication within our community. Keep the mysteries coming!

-BCDS Communications Associate

Dafir said...

I'm still waiting for Toph to tell us what the "Nintendo arcade game" that was in the senior lounge way back when was and whatever happened to it.

Anonymous said...

Waiting for Toph? Why Toph?

But I'm interested too, so we'll see if anyone knows...

"Many people don't read the Beaver web site, and while our readership isn't much better (if it's better at all)"

Haha I have a feeling our readership is a lot worse. But maybe "different" is the way to put it. We hit different segments of the community.

Anonymous said...

I am pretty sure this article is blatant plagiarism. For the original article, please see the Beaver website.

http://bcdschool.org/common/news_detail.asp?newsid=452394&L1=6&L2=1

Anonymous said...

Either

you posted a comment without reading any of the other comments or clicking on the link at the bottom of the article

or

you read the comments, clicked on the link, and are quite funny

Anonymous said...

There's a controversy?

They're just benches...