In the wee hours of Friday morning we fought our way through the cold and rain and general grossness of Pittsburgh to begin our journey to sunny, warm, beautiful Florida. We arrived to a fun surprise: Tom’s license, while renewed online, was not valid for renting the van! So Katherine, being the only other student over twenty-five, was put in charge of the boat-van, since our advisers would be leaving us after this first day of our visit.
From the airport we drove directly to ITEC to meet our partners, discuss our plans and get some information about the building they’ve designed. They gave us a tour of their facility, fed us lunch and answered a ton of questions. We were also given the opportunity to float our ideas for the interactive experience that we are designing to take place in their physical space. They were extremely supportive and offered up some helpful suggestions.
Next up was the main attraction: a visit to Give Kids The World! We entered the Castle of Miracles, where the stars are currently housed. Every single Wish Child has written their name or a message on a small 1.5-inch reflective star, which is placed into the “sky” of the castle, where it will remain. Unfortunately, after so many years and so many children, the castle is running out of room. We were all blown away by the sheer number of stars and the surface area they cover.
We also payed a visit to a previous ETC project, which was responsible for the creation of the Star Fairy and the current database system. The addition of a Star Passport with a barcode was a huge leap forward in organizing and documenting the thousands upon thousands of stars that are placed in the castle. Cassandra has been working since last semester on fixing up the software that runs the current Star Fairy show, which has been experiencing problems lately, to the extent that she “went on vacation” around the holidays.
We headed outside to the building site for the Star Tower, ITEC’s solution to the problem of where to put the next generation of stars. Although we’ve known the measurements for some time, seeing it staked out in the ground was a good reality check: it’s a small, contained space — plenty big for a sky of stars, but pretty tiny for a large family to stand in all at once. Seeing how it will abut the tower and how large of a footprint it actually has has already spurred us to rethink some of our plans to accommodate the comfort of the guests.
The Team and our Friends at ITEC and GKTW
We heard some amazing stories about the emotional importance of the star program and were reminded why this resort is such a unique and special place. It was a very long, very informative day, so we headed out to dinner with a promise to return on Sunday in order to volunteer and get some hands-on experience in the village.
Although exhausted, we did manage to make time to devour some chocolate lava cake from Chili’s before checking into the hotel, where we were in for another surprise: bunk beds!
In the next post: A visit to Hogsmeade!