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Teen Performance Group Fundraises with Tiny House Project


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This is a teen performance group in Vermont who is fundraising for a trip to Ireland with a teeny-tiny house project!

They are raffling off the home they spent the summer creating in order to fund their three-week trip, which is the culmination of four years of study and practice in “The Way of the Bard.” You can support them by purchasing tickets here. The house has bamboo floors, a handcrafted arched doorway, and tons of charm.

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Teen Performance Group Fundraises with Tiny House Project

Images via Treewild

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Images via Treewild

Video: Teeny-Tiny House Building 2016

From Their Instructor: 

The driveway is splattered with peacock green stain, sawdust and blue-board crumbs are in everyone’s hair. These teens who formed a performance group have discovered a surprising satisfaction in something entirely foreign to them: building a house. Teeny-tiny, fairy-tale charming, with cedar shingles, a bamboo floor, and live-edge siding, this is not just any house.
The young people in The Way of the Bard have been working together for four years, getting together each season to study the art of telling a story, accompanied by their own music and singing. They are kids who want to have their voices and opinions heard, and feel strongly about things like anti-bias and respecting all kinds of people. Some have felt the sting of discrimination and some have looked on with painful discomfort as others were shamed or bullied. The Baders are shaping the creation story of Ireland, with its great mythic gods, and infusing it with present-day relevance. In June they are going to Ireland and walking the land like Bards of old.
But to get there, they have to fundraise, and thus the tiny house. They spent a week this past summer framing it up between rehearsals, and then weekends and after school, they came back to put on siding, insulation, those cedar shingles and a copper ridge cap.
“It was something I never thought I could do,” Kyle, 16, said. “It was a skill set I just didn’t have. But when I look at the house, it makes me so proud.”
Addie, also 16, was terrified when they had to move the house onto blocks. Foolishly, they had framed it right on the driveway, and after the house was in one piece, realized that it would eventually have to be moved. So all 18 kids, and some helping adults ringed the house and on a count of three, lifted it up and moved it onto blocks. If it had slipped, some hands would have been crushed. “It made me realize the power of doing things in a group,” Addie said.
Working with power tools is not a part of most kids’ curriculum. There’s a surge of wild joy when they master the skill saw and cut a board that just fits. And that power driver, when they discovered just the right amount of force to push a screw in cleanly, was just as thrilling.
As the house progressed, many of the parents stepped in to help, some with building skills, others as new to this world as the kids. Fortunately one of the parents was truly a master builder, and he was able to keep the building level and true. He also stepped up to craft the tiny round-top door and its frame, complete with high-end hardware.
The house now is finished, with a plug-in heater that keeps it warm even at 15 below, and a twin bed that converts to a sofa by day. The house is on a trailer ready to be delivered anywhere in the country for the cost of travel, to the owner of the winning raffle ticket.
And each of those tickets will support these teens taking their message of inclusiveness and magic to a land rich with the tradition of the Bard. They’ll spend 19 days in June and July, walking across Ireland doing performances at the Cliffs of Moher and Newgrange, working with adults and students, and filming a documentary of their experiences.
If you want a ticket, or a dozen, go visit www.treewild.org

Resources: 

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Natalie C. McKee

Natalie C. McKee is a contributor for Tiny House Talk and the Tiny House Newsletter. She's a wife, and mama of three little kids. She and her family are homesteaders with sheep, goats, chickens, ducks and quail on their happy little acre.

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{ 10 comments… add one }
  • AVD
    December 21, 2016, 11:46 am

    It is great to see kids (teens) building Tiny houses that have some design0zing to them. But the “adults” on the ground should start the instruction process by teaching the “new builders” how to dress properly for construction and then followup with basic tool instruction before they ever start the project.
    Bare feet, flip-flops, and lack of eye-protection were some problem areas that showed up in the pictures. Following sane safety measures would make the kids safer and reduce the liability for the “adults” and their organization.

    A bit of inattention and safety gaps can cost a finger, toe or eye.

    • Kevin
      December 23, 2016, 7:35 am

      @AVD: I agree.

  • Claude
    December 21, 2016, 1:55 pm

    Excellent getting youngsters to learn to use their hands. Great effort but have to agree with AVD. Safety should be taught before anybody picks up a tool. No one steps into my workshop bare-foot or with slip-slops, not even to watch.

  • Erin R.
    December 21, 2016, 3:57 pm

    The house is lovely.

    However, the pictures of the kids working without any eye protection, and using tools (especially a circular saw) while wearing flip flops or barefoot scares the heck out of me!

    The instructors need to teach the kids not only about construction but also about project site safety!

    • Natalie
      December 22, 2016, 7:39 am

      Haha I confess that also crossed my mind! — Tiny House Talk Team

  • Bill Burgess
    December 21, 2016, 4:38 pm

    Safety FIRST…110 % for design ; 1000% for initiative ; 2000% for creativity( but they ARE Artists) ; 110% for good cause and follow through. Although I am VERY HAPPY they have such success my main hope is they all find a safe country to become refugees.

    • Natalie
      December 22, 2016, 7:37 am

      They did a great job 🙂 — Tiny House Talk Team

  • Nanny M
    December 22, 2016, 12:49 pm

    Darling nursery rhyme style.

    • Natalie
      December 23, 2016, 11:56 am

      So cute! — Tiny House Talk Team

  • January 2, 2017, 6:48 pm

    This group did an amazing job! It makes my hear happy to see one of my plans come to life.

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