WHAT IT MEANS

School closings because of the coronavirus pandemic resulted in many creative ways to celebrate students.

A project taken on by Oberlin College and Conservatory’s Technology in Music and Related Arts program in January is bringing messages of gratitude to University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center.

The Gratitude Showers Challenge involves local children and the community to create their very own sundrops to be part of a community art installation that eventually will be delivered to the hospital.

Program technical director Abby Aresty said two of her Sonic Arts in Society classes and four research assistants have worked on the project since the beginning of the year.

“For my students, I think it’s been a very powerful experience,” Aresty said.

With the spread of novel coronavirus and Oberlin College’s campus left empty, she said there was some reimagining of the project.

Aresty said her research assistants have worked to make the project digital by producing animations and videos, since the installation can’t be in the hospital yet.

When drawings are submitted to the project, her and her students work to create sundrops out of them, which use solar-powered circuits to recreate the sound of rainfall, she said.

When possible, Oberlin College students will install the drops on clear umbrellas suspended in the hospital’s courtyard.

“Students really wanted to find a way to give back, and that there’s something that they could give to the community partner and community more generally,” Aresty said.

The gratitude challenge also has involved other students in the community, including the Oberlin Choristers vocal program.

Students helped run the event digitally last month, which allowed middleschool age youngsters to draw and design their own sundrops.

Aresty said the choristers’ involvement kickstarted community involvement in the project.

“This was a chance for them to meet with students and practice their teaching, and walk students through ideas of gratitude to share with the health care workers,” she said of the event.

The gratitude challenge is one of several that Oberlin College’s program is working on with the hospital, including prototyping bracelets to tell the stories of patients through audio recordings and preparing programming that studies sound, breath, mindfulness and technology for those with upper respiratory conditions.

Aresty said the project is taking sundrop submissions until May 11, and is hoping to double its current number of 45 with 100 drops by then.

COURTESY — JULIE GULENKO Oberlin College and Converatory students enrolled in technical director Abby Aresty’s Sonic Arts in Society Winter Term will prepare for planned spring semester projects engaging University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center hospital system populations in creative arts-based workshops.