Phylis, the pink, paper machÇ pig outside of the UNM Bookstore, is collecting donations for the children at PB&J Family Services Inc. for the three days before and after Thanksgiving.
PB&J Family Services Inc. is a nonprofit agency that focuses on child development and intervention. The money donated will provide families with household items, pay utility bills and give children clothes, learning tools and toys for the holidays.
Phylis is a class project through Freshman Learning Environments, which links freshman English 101 and commons courses that study public places.
The purpose of the project is multifaceted. Mark Childs, an assistant professor who teaches about space in architecture, said the students will measure the effects of the pig on a public place. Childs said students will examine how people approach and respond to the pig as well as what types of comments people make about the surrounding area. Childs also discussed the idea of triangulation, or how an object or event can bring strangers together for discussions.
He said another purpose of the project is to allow students to learn by playing. A student can only learn so much in the classroom, Childs said, but, when students work together on a project that will be presented to the public, they can see where it lacked planning or research. For example, he said the advertisement didn't answer why people should donate. Students also struggled with the location of the pig, but decided on the bookstore to draw off-campus donations, he said.
"The purpose of the project is to get a class of freshman to meet their classmates," said Jeff Zimpleman, publicist for the project. "Working together they can meet each other."
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Students volunteered to do parts of the project and put their work together for an end product. Zimpleman said the main goal is to get students to work together on a class project to help an outside group. Childs said students will be graded on the project, not how much money it pulls in.
Students in the class voted to decide the idea of creating a pig. Childs said the idea started from a slide he presented in class of a brass pig in the Pike Place Market in Seattle.
The brass pig collects about $10,000 a year in change, he said. The money goes back into the public market and to a clinic that offers different social outreach programs.
"It's a pig for a piggy bank," Zimpleman said. "A pink pig is eye catching and people will want to see it."
On the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, the pig will be opened and the money will be collected, Childs said.
