Volunteers Needed To Refinish Chairs

WALLOPS -- The Marine Science Consortium is looking for a few good men and women to help with a unique project. The consortium is refinishing more than 200 wooden chairs that will be classroom and lab seating in its new Leadership in Environment and Design Certified Education Center. The certification denotes the level of sustainability and green design that goes into a building.

The Education Center is being built with sustainable products, has high efficiency heating and cooling systems, low VOC paints and other products used indoors, low water use systems and is landscaped with plants native to the Eastern Shore.

"It's so wonderful to have a building that can be a model for other new building projects on the Shore," says Executive Director Amber Parker. "We not only want the building to be sustainable, but also the furnishing and other elements that fill it. The chairs we are refinishing were originally used in classrooms in Bloomsburg College in the late 1950s. They were donated to MSC, probably in the early 1970s. These attractive, comfortable chairs only need a facelift to continue to serve MSC for years to come."

Restoring and reusing the chairs creates a story of sustainability by allowing the consortium to show how, with just a bit of elbow grease, sturdy, old furniture can be revitalized and reused, instead of throwing it away and purchasing something new.

Sanding and giving multiple coats of polyurethane to more than 200 chairs does take some effort. Many have been completed, thanks to the efforts of staff and college student service weekend; however, there are many left to complete. The consortium would like to invite volunteers from the community to assist with this big project so that they can be a part of its story.

Volunteers should be comfortable using belt or circular sanders. The consortium will provide all training necessary. Service groups and individual volunteers are welcome.

Please contact Amber Parker at 757-824-5636 or execdirector@msconsortium.org if you would like to donate your time.

The Marine Science Consortium is a nonprofit environmental learning center and field station located on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

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