The Gratitude Showers Challenge (2020)

The Gratitude Showers Challenge (2020)

The Gratitude Showers Challenge invited kids and community members to create messages of gratitude to share with hospital workers in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. When it is safe to do so, these messages will be installed at the University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center in the form of an umbrella-themed sound installation with solar-powered ‘sundrop’ circuits to shower hospital workers with gratitude. You can learn more about the project at the Gratitude Showers website.

I developed the Gratitude Showers Challenge in collaboration with members of my Crafting Sound Lab (research assistants generously awarded by Oberlin’s Research and Development Committee), members of my Winter Term 2020 group class (funded through a curriculum development grant awarded by Oberlin College’s Dean’s Office), and my Spring Semester Sonic Arts in Society Community-Based Learning course, which partnered with the University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center. This course was supported by Oberlin College’s Bonner Center for Service Learning via my Community-Based Learning 2020 Faculty Fellowship, as well as by a Teaching grant, which supported the teaching assistant for this course. The research assistants who worked on this project include Michael Gaspari, Maya McCollum, Gabriel Baskin, Rachel Gibson, and Kat Mazur.