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Career center Trash Bash is smashing success
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .The students of Melissa Hackett's Interactive Multimedia classroom are the creative minds behind the annual Trash Bash. The students showed off their ensembles of repurposed goods before their Trash Bash fashion show on April 20.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Mahoning County Career and Technical Center Interactive Multimedia students, left to right, Lexie Hall, Alyssa Higgins and Caitlin Vance, showed off the outfits they created out of recyclable materials for the school’s annual Trash Bash April 20.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Boardman student Morgan Stickle modeled the dress she made with teammate Payge Bonar for the MCCTC Trash Bash on April 20. The ensemble was fashioned by gluing over 1,000 puzzle pieces on an old formal dress.
By SARAH FOOR
For about a month, the students in Melissa Hackett’s Interactive Multimedia class have been asking around MCCTC in Canfield for old newspapers, magnetic VCR tape, and stray puzzle pieces, among many other requests. Although the goods could appropriately head to the trash or a recycling center, Hackett’s students have reused them in new and fashionable ways for their fifth annual Trash Bash.
The event challenges small teams of students to create fashions with materials destined for the trash. On the project’s fifth anniversary, Hackett said the creativity grows each year.
“The project is a wonderful way for the students to learn how to be resourceful in the art field and achieve a vision while working on a team. The students really push themselves and this year we’ve seen an improvement in craftsmanship, with sewing machine use and hand stitching for many of the pieces,” Hackett said.
There were many ways to participate in the Trash Bash and students who chose not to design or model clothing helped create recycled sculptures that decorated the stage during the two showings.
Many of the students mixed ingenuity with their own interests during the project.
Austintown native Adam Hough created a “shufflebot,” a dancer that can often be seen with pop group LMFAO, with teammates Cody Edward and Kyle Barry.
“We used a cardboard box, tape and styrofoam. Our mission was to have fun with it and make people laugh with the shufflebot,” Hough explained.
Boardman student Savannah Heeter and Austintown teammate Samantha Stanger mixed their styles together, creating a dress with a top made of camouflage and a skirt made of handkerchiefs sewn together.
Morgan Stickle and Payge Bonar, from Boardman and West Branch, respectively, hand glued more than 1,000 puzzle pieces to an old formal dress for their project.
“I like the Trash Bash because you think about using things in a new way. As soon as we had an idea, we considered what else we could do to push it further and reuse unique materials,” Stickle said. Kim Lewis, an environmental educator with the Green Team, offered the original suggestion for the Trash Bash five years ago and has been happy to see the project grow.
“The quality has been wonderful from the beginning and it keeps getting better. The creativity of the students in Interactive Multimedia is a perfect fit for the project and they prove it each and every year,” Lewis said.