CAS Project

Kala, Kevin, and Lily's Mending Seminar

May 22, 2026

Central High School

My CAS project, completed with Kala and Lily, was an afternoon seminar held in Ms. Catlin’s room to teach individuals basic mending skills. There were two primary stages of the seminar: assistance with damaged clothing and teaching mending methods. The first stage involved direct help with mending garments through one-on-one instructions and furnishment of materials. The second stage, which I was mainly involved in, dealt with teaching techniques for mending clothing. Before the seminar, I had to learn the basic techniques as I was a beginner to the skill, which also contributed to my anxiety about the project. I resolved this issue by collaborating with my father and watching several YouTube videos, enabling me to quickly pick up the essential knowledge that I needed to teach others. These actions transitioned my initial fear about the project into some degree of confidence and led to the development of L.O. 2 as I developed new skills.  I also led logistical tasks as I procured the snacks that we would provide during the seminar and helped circulate information about the event. Unfortunately, during the day that we intended to hold the seminar, all afterschool activities were cancelled, so we were forced to reschedule with little notice. 

During the day of the seminar, I received additional training from Kala and Lily about more advanced techniques that I could teach the participants, increasing my confidence. As we began the seminar, I helped organize the materials, including sewing needles, fabrics, buttons, ribbons, and other scraps. One person arrived at our designated start time, and I helped her repair the button on her jeans by providing the necessary materials, including the sewing needle; she already knew how to sew. However, we quickly realized that we had made an error in our planning. Few people were showing up as we did not sufficiently advertise the event and had to reschedule it, forcing people to cancel their plans. Hence, a critical lesson we learned was the importance of advertising, especially beyond those that we directly knew. Moreover, it became clear that the decision to reschedule with such short notice was an ineffective, perhaps even detrimental strategy as few people showed up, allowing me to learn the need to reschedule events with larger notice periods. 

Yet, despite these issues, several other people arrived at the seminar. Working alongside Kala and Lily, we taught them novel, basic techniques to sewing, such as running stitches, back stitches and whip stitches. I also led instructions on how to carefully separate embroidery floss from 6 strands into 3 and explained how to stitch buttons onto cloth. Not only did these efforts enable creativity from the participants as they decided the design of their mend, but also facilitated Learning Goal 6, as they would now no longer throw away garments, but repair them, supporting environmentalism, an issue of global significance. Moreover, such teaching efforts were very successful, and I partly attribute them to my learning experience in acquiring knowledge of these techniques, which enabled me to teach them better as I became aware of how best to teach them to a beginner. As a tutor, this project helped me take my teaching skills from purely school-based subjects to practical, real-world ones. These successes contributed to the development of Learning Goal 1, as I uncovered areas of strength in teaching, while also realizing certain areas for growth as I reflected on the aforementioned outreach and logistical challenges. By the end of the seminar, although we had issues in outreach, I was fulfilled by the project and deeply enjoyed the collaboration with Kala and Lily. We had communicated via text on the logistics, but also worked in-person to coordinate the event with little friction. During the seminar, we worked seamlessly to facilitate each other’s explanations.

Artifacts at Right