How one Ocracoke woman’s connections brought the single biggest post-Dorian private donation to the island.
On July 30 and 31, right before Ocracoke shut down for Hurricane Isaias, three trucks rolled onto the island carrying sleek, modern, high-end design desks, chairs, tables, stools, and bookshelves for Ocracoke School and Ocracoke Library.
A crew of teachers, staff, and community volunteers gathered in the unrelenting heat to unload the furniture and store it in the new temporary modular classrooms recently placed at the back side of the school. A smaller load of furniture was delivered to the temporary Ocracoke Library in Deepwater Theater.
It is a gift from the designer/manufacturer, VS America.
And it all got here because of Ocracoke resident Sara Teaster.
Sara Teaster moved to Ocracoke just weeks after Hurricane Dorian. She had been hired by Ocracoke School to work for the 21st Century Community Learning Center after-school program and create a school garden with the kids. Sara was eager to move back to the island where she’d spent the fall of 2016 getting to know the community.
“I came to work a wonderful job at the school,” she said. “But when I got to the island, I was heartbroken. It was all so overwhelming to see the hurricane damage.”
She was especially devastated to see the school. All but four classrooms in the Pre-K–12th grade school were flooded: the gym, the library, the middle and high school classrooms, the commons area, art room, wood shop, computer lab, offices, multi-purpose room, weight room, and classrooms for pre-K, 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades.
“I could see that the school was in dire straits and I wanted to help,” she said. Sara shared her concerns with her friend and former coworker Dina Sorenson, and “we started brainstorming ideas.”
“Dina suggested I talk to VS America, and connected me to the company CEO, Claudius Reckord. I told him what a special place Ocracoke School is – and he agreed to furnish the school,” Sara said.
By “furnish the school” she means that Claudius generously decided to donate all the furniture for all the flooded classrooms. It’s all free – even the delivery!
VS America is a furniture company based in Germany, with its American headquarters in Charlotte, NC. Sara got to know the company years ago when she worked for VMDO Architects in Charlottesville, VA as the Sustainability Manager on a nationally-recognized project to retrofit an elementary school in Buckingham, VA. The project turned the school into a learning space that also promotes physical movement and healthy habits for the students’ holistic well-being. Dina was part of design team that planned the Buckingham school, including the furniture plan with VS America. The design won a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold awarded. Sara signed on after the school was built to design the kitchen garden for a U.S. Green Building Council project for sustainability projects for or with children.
“At VMDO, we had such a good experience working with VS America, we kept working with them on other projects,” Sara said.
After Sara and Dina both left VMDO, Dina continued to work with VS America on projects. Dina is a freelance architect and known as an expert in the field of architectural design for K-12 schools. As a public speaker, Dina travels the world sharing her knowledge about designing schools for student health and movement.
“Kids need flexible spaces that allows for wiggle movement,” Sara said. “So kids can be kids.” VS America designs, like their signature “Hokki” stool, allow and encourage students to move.
Sara helped coordinate a November visit to Ocracoke for Claudius, Dina, and VS America business development director Craig Harvey. They came to see the damage and potential at Ocracoke School for themselves.
“They stayed at the Cabanas – that was donated by Martha Garrish and Donna Drilling at Ocracoke Island Realty,” Sara explained. “None of them had ever been to Ocracoke before, they arrived on the evening ferry from Swan Quarter in the dark, and we went to the only place that was open – Sorella’s.” (Ocracoke was still deep in Dorian-recovery mode in November; thank goodness for pizza!)
As they relaxed over their meal at Sorella’s, another customer overheard the conversation about coming to help Ocracoke School – and bought their dinner! What a nice welcome to the island.
The next day, the VS America group met Ocracoke School principal Leslie Cole, Hyde County Schools superintendent Steve Basnight, and the district’s grant-writer Nancy Leach for a tour of the school and library (full disclosure: as Ocracoke Library branch manager, I met the group when they looked at the library). They saw the flood-damaged buildings, and the makeshift classrooms at NCCAT and Ocracoke Child Care. They also enjoyed a golf cart tour of the island and did not miss seeing the lighthouse! They asked about the school’s needs and offered to donate everything.
They invited Steve to visit the furniture showroom in Charlotte (he did).
“I was like a kid in a candy store,” he said. “My wife said it was like I’d visited Santa’s workshop.”
Steve was impressed with the showrooms and varieties of furniture. “It’s not just pretty, it’s durable,” he said, adding that Claudius beat on the top of a desk with a metal pipe and it didn’t leave a mark.
“This furniture is awesome. Somebody finally sat down and figured out how to make school furniture really work for students and teachers. Teachers will have the flexibility to create classrooms that work for the kind of instruction they are doing,” Steve said.
He also expressed gratitude for the VS America team.
“From Sara making the connection to Claudius and his staff being so welcoming, we just can’t thank them enough,” he said. “They’re an international company, but they left Charlotte and came all the way to Ocracoke with their top design people. I just can’t thank them enough for their generosity and kindness and being available to us and physically being here.”
In addition to the VS America furniture donation, Dina contributed her time to designing for Ocracoke School, creating plans for the temporary classrooms and future classrooms to incorporate the VA America products. (Later she also re-worked the plans to take into consideration the extra social distancing requirements for the COVID-19 era.)
Ocracoke School staff were thrilled to have the future furniture needs taken care of while they sought funding and plans for the demo, rebuild, and repair of the campus buildings.
Enter Kelly St. Clair.
Kelly got involved in the Ocracoke School project partly because she works for VS America out of Roanoke, VA, but mostly because she has a beach house in Avon.
“It’s a long trek for them to visit Ocracoke from Charlotte,” she said. “And then when COVID hit, everything got put on hold.”
Kelly was at her house in Avon in May when Ocracoke lifted visitor restrictions to the island.
“I let Claudius know I was there,” she said. “And I went to the open house at the Community Center and met Leslie, Steve, and [school architect] Ben Cahoon. We talked about the ten trailers coming, and the temporary library, and the classes in the daycare building.”
Thus, VS America decided to send enough furniture for the temporary spaces, with more to come as needed when the school is repaired and rebuilt.
“I helped to lay out ideas of how the school could use the product and then we made plans for social distancing for COVID,” Kelly said. “There was a lot of back and forth to find out what teachers wanted, to figure out what pieces were needed.”
(Full disclosure: as library branch manager, I attended two Zoom calls with Kelly, Craig, and Dina to discuss library needs/wants.)
Kelly has an interior design degree and used to specify VA America for projects until they hired her for sales seven years ago. She definitely believes in the product.
“Sara got Ocracoke connected to the best resource available,” she said. “It’s quite a blessing for the school. There is a lot of thought put into everything, considering the research in ergonomics for kids that help their brain function and well-being.”
She told me a little about the VS America company – in Germany, it has been designing furniture for educational settings for 120 years. The founder of the company was friends with Maria Montessori and took her innovative ideas into consideration. The headquarters in Germany houses a museum of school furniture, showing the progression of design from the late 1800’s until now.
“VS America is so creative. All the pieces are built for adaptability and flexibility,” Kelly said.
She also confessed that our July 30 and 31 delivery dates were based on the availability of her Avon house. She wanted to be here when the furniture arrived. Kelly brought her husband, Dave, and even though he said he was just here for the beer (they enjoyed the brews at 1718), he carried more than his share of the pieces.
Nobody carried as much furniture, however, as Ms. Leslie, principal extraordinaire, who had already worked out earlier in the morning, and could lift more than the menfolk. Nobody could keep up. Seriously, don’t make her mad! She's tough.
“We are beyond grateful to Sara for getting the ball rolling and to Kelly and VS America for generously donating so much furniture to Ocracoke School,” she said. “The teachers that have had a chance to see have been so excited! It’s been great to see the excitement. I can’t wait to see their classrooms set up. The products are really cool. It’s been a really nice few days to see the furniture roll out of the trucks.”
When (if?) students return to Ocracoke School in-person (they will do remote learning for at least the first 9 weeks of school, which begins August 17), they will be greeted with all-new classrooms designed and set up just for their needs.
Last week, Sara and I set up the Deepwater library. We squealed a lot, admired our handiwork, and exclaimed “It looks so good!” several times an hour. The bookshelves are sooooo cool – they roll, they have handles for easy moving, their wheels lock, and they attach to each other with magnets. The tables roll, the tops fold down for storage, and the height is adjustable. One of the tables can be a standing desk and also a white board. We have wobbly Hokki stools for the kids and these cool indoor-outdoor stackable Stakki chairs for all ages. The Shift+ soft furniture pieces are a bright, happy green. All this furniture (and more!) will move with us to the library eventually. Until then, our temporary library looks like a real library. Come check it out! (It’s open Monday-Friday 1-5pm and Saturday 9am-1pm)
Hyde County Schools plans to elevate and repair the library building, which is part of the school campus. They will also elevate and repair the 2-story elementary building and floodproof the gym. The older c. 1970’s part of the school will be demolished and replaced with a building that will connect the gym and elementary buildings’ interiors (so you can walk through without going outside) and also with outside walkways.
It's going to be amazing! VS America has committed to furnishing the new and repaired buildings when they are ready. The furniture that has already been delivered is just a fraction of the gift Ocracoke School will receive. It pays to have the right connections.
