Two area public service agencies need to improve their facilities. Twenty West Virginia University interior design students need an advanced project to test their skills. Bring them together and you’ve got the making for a hands-on service learning opportunity.

Seniors in WVU ’s interior design program are currently finalizing plans for Christian Help in Morgantown and the Taylor County Rescue Squad in Grafton. The projects are part of the program’s capstone experience; students will present their final designs to agency representatives at noon Monday, March 22, and Wednesday, March 24.

Cindy Beacham, assistant professor of interior design, said she was initially contacted by the Rescue Squad for some interior intervention.

The squad has applied for a grant to improve their facilities and wanted to consult with our students to discuss design possibilities,Beacham explained. The call prompted her to make the project central to the program’s advanced design course, and to also approach another agency, Christian Help, to give students a different set of design challenges.

The Taylor County facility is used primarily for administrative functions and as housing for on-duty squad members. It’s been built in stages as funding and volunteer labor have become available. Christian Help’s space encompasses storage, administration and a retail shop. A primary consideration in the Christian Help design is functionality and ease of use by clients and volunteers.

So far, the student designers have met with agency representatives, visited the facilities, taken extensive site measurements, and turned those measurements into computer-assisted site plans. Beacham has already reviewed preliminary designs from the students which focus on floor plans, color options and initial design direction. Using Beacham’s feedback, the students are finalizing their projects for presentation.

The process has been valuable for students, closely mirroring the professional process they’ll follow after graduation.

Kelly Alexander, a senior from Penn Run, Pa., describes the process as depending heavily oncreative embellishment.Balancing each client’s specific needs and limited resources, Alexander explained, has required the students to rely on sound basic design over extensive (and sometimes costly) decoration of the spaces.

Working with Christian Help inspired another service activity for the student designers. The student chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers is currently conducting a canned food drive to help stock the shelves of the organization’s pantry.

WVU ’s program in interior design, part of the Division of Family and Consumer Sciences in the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences, is the only accredited program in the field in West Virginia. It recently received a six-year re-accreditation from the Foundation for Interior Design Education and Research.