Tree of Hope - A Great Bonding/ Team Building Acitivty for Youths

The Tree of Hop adorned the stage of the fund raising luncheon at Across U-hub's new home in Markham

We went to the Across U-hub Open House last weekend.

Given a personal tour of the new facility, we were amazed at what the youths and the committee members to the warehouse turned youth activity centre.

The Tree of Hope made from Tim Hortons used cups

Of all the things we had seen at the centre, the Tree of Hope was my favourite.

 

The trunk

It is beautiful, creative, easily made without
costing a lot for material.

It was made by recycling used coffee cups from Tim Hortons. Because of the colour on these cups, there was no need to paint the trunk.





Making the trunk of the tree - Rinse and let the used coffee cups dry first. Cut and remove the bottom part of the coffee cups, flatten it and turn one edge of the cups to the underside. Glue and overlapping each cup until they form a circle.

Glue the circle of cups on a piece of pre cut cardboard in the shape of a circle. Then add and glue layers of the coffee cups on top of each other until they reach the desired height of the tree.

The youths also made wind chimes out of other used paper and plastic cups. They painted the colorless cups in different colours representing how they felt

Then, on one piece of paper, each youth wrote them his/ her fears. They strung these pieces at the top of their chime representing their past.

On another piece paper, they were encouraged to  look to their future and write down one thing they would like or hope to do.

After reflecting on their fears, hopes and dreams, the youth worked and put together the different parts of the chimes.
 
During the process of creating this tree, there were many opportunities for program participants to  search themselves and to express their inner fears and hopes with one another creating bonds and a community among the youths and the program leaders.

The end result of this program was not just a colourful, but a very meaningful tree for all program participants. Most important of all, it gave the youths opportunities to come together, explore their fears, anxieties and hopes, talked about them among their peers and mentors therefore creating a sense of belonging among group members and a community for them.

This was an outstanding community art project.  I look forward to more future community bonding projects organized by Across U-Hub!

R.T.
Markham, Ontario