Community Corner

School, Businesses & Volunteers Give Stone Mountain Girl New Bedroom

Ron Clark Academy student wanted - and received - a Grammy-themed bedroom.

A Stone Mountain girl has a new bedroom thanks to her school, local businessses, an education company and dedicated volunteers.

A core group of about five volunteers came from education company Promethean, which creates interactive products for classrooms and has its North American headquarters in Alpharetta.

A handful of volunteers' friends and relatives and about 10-15 others also participated in transforming the room of Ron Clark Academy fifth grader Kamryn Graham into one that any young lady would love. Graham's was one of seven Ron Clark Academy student bedrooms to get a new look.

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Volunteers started the work on Graham's room at 5 p.m. Friday and had the big reveal at noon Sunday.

The Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta has started a yearly "Xtreme Bedroom Makeover" program in which it works with sponsors and volunteer groups to redo rooms of students, who are selected for the makeovers through an essay contest.

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Now done up in red, white, black, and silver, Graham's room has many elements she'd asked for in her essay.

In fact, Graham was very specific about her design desires. She wrote that she wanted red carpet to be part of a "Grammy award show theme." The bed would be part of the "stage," silver stars would be atop roomier clothes drawers, and so on.

She even incorporated her studies into her vision.

"Last but not least," Graham wrote in her essay, she wanted a spot for a desk, "a place where I can sit down and do my home work without being disturbed."

And she definitely knew what she didn't want anymore. No more "white and dull" furniture, no more cramped quarters, no more old carpet.

Beyond the aesthestics, Graham wrote that she would be happy just to get some needed repairs - which the volunteers took care of. They fixed holes, put in new window treatments, both for looks and to keep her room comfortable.

Graham said her windows -- which she described in her essay as "thin" -- let in the cold during wintertime and brought in heat during the summer, were also inspected by team members. It was just a matter of making changes to the duct work to keep her room temperature right, a volunteer said.

"Whatever you do to my room I'd be extremely over the top grateful even if you just patched up the hole above the head of bed," Graham wrote. "I would say thank you so many times it may be unbelievable. If you extremely make over my room it would show me the importance of giving back to the community."

At the reveal, she told the volunteers that she never imagined her room would turn out the way it did.

While they were at the home, volunteers also replaced glass in the family's garage and fixed a railing on the second floor.

This is Promethean's third year being involved in the makeover program, said  Jodie Pozo-Olano, head of public relations (North America) for Promethean.
Over the past month, the company has been raising money and collection donations so Graham's bedroom can be turned into "a glitzy and [glamorous] living experience."

Promethean also installed in the home a Promethean ActivBoard, which is an interactive whiteboard.


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