Our Crowdfunding Groups
The School of Visual Art and Design needs help transforming its underutilized courtyard into a functional space for students to meet, work, share ideas, and learn! We love our home in McMaster College, a unique building on the National Register of Historic Places, but our courtyard is overdue for a refresh. A new brick terrace, seating and tables, and fresh landscaping will reclaim our exterior grounds into a usable space to hold class discussions, student meetings, art critiques, and more.
The School of Visual Art and Design (SVAD) at the University of South Carolina offers the most comprehensive visual arts program in the state. We offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in Art Education, Art History, Studio Art, and Media Arts in our 85,000 square foot facility designed specifically for the study and creation of the visual arts. Each semester, over 1,500 students enter our doors to take classes in our four areas of study.
New tables and chairs, refreshed garden beds, and a dedicated space for students to meet, work, share ideas, and learn will turn our outdoor space into a functional extension of our classrooms. We envision our students engaging with our campus grounds, continuing their learning outdoors, and benefiting from a new space to sit, practice, and take a break.
Our students want to foster a sense of community at the School of Visual Art and Design, and this space will provide them with room to gather, convene, share ideas, and collaborate. It is our vision that a redesigned and activated courtyard will become a gathering space for University Hill neighbors, children, families, and community members that goes beyond the SVAD community.
The University of South Carolina Facilities crew have already begun to help us by removing overgrown plants. The next steps will require your help to purchase new outdoor seating, install a brick terrace, and remove invasive plants, as we begin to reclaim and re-adapt the space for future discussions, interactions, collaborations, and creations to take place.
Each donation made to Activate SVAD! will go directly towards the costs of purchasing tables and seating, removing old plant materials and overgrown landscaping from the late 1990s, and creating a brick terrace.
Your donations will help us introduce new plantings that are well-adapted to the Columbia climate. The University Landscape Designer has chosen to work with native plants as well as plants already found on our university campus, such as Itea, Dwarf Blueberry, Sasanqua, Leucothoe, Lantana, and a variety of Sedges.
Your gift at this level will help us remove overgrown vegetation in our courtyard.
Your gift at this level will provide a square foot of brick terrace.
Your donation at this level will support the purchase of a chair for our courtyard.
Your donation at this level will support the purchase of a new outdoor, weather-resistant table for our courtyard.
