01/17/2026
My son Will attended Greenville Tech Charter High School, Barton Campus. Long after graduation, this school continues to give back to our family in ways I never take for granted. Will went on to Furman University on a full ride, well prepared not just academically, but as a person—and always grateful for where he began.
Yesterday, we were fortunate to have two classes of students volunteer with Walt’s Waltz for two hours. For a grassroots nonprofit like ours—where nearly everything we do is hands-on—this was a blessing, truly a gift.
These students jumped right in. They counted and stacked card stock and butterflies, clipped them together, and packed crates with care. These stacks go into our canvas butterfly bags and are the most time-consuming part of our materials prep—the counting of card stock—for our Painting Mental Health Workshops. It’s detailed, repetitive work, but these students made it joyful. They laughed, stayed focused, and somehow turned something tedious into something fun.
Others cut out thousands of butterflies for our magnets and pins for our Painting Mental Health Workshops. There was a hot-glue team, a trimming team, and a careful sorting system when some pieces needed extra drying time. Even then, the work kept moving—smiles, conversation, and patience all around.
When someone wanted to switch jobs, they did. A group wrote handwritten thank-you notes to our donors, each student contributing even one as a gesture of gratitude. Two students worked beside me figuring out how to cut felt for our new butterfly paperweights—testing a new circle cutter, adjusting sizes, and sticking with it until it worked. Because of them, we now have our very first stack of perfectly sized felt adhesive circles.
Others sat on the floor assembling binders tied to a second grant for our treasured books. And when everything was finished, teams pulled wagons and helped load materials into our van and station wagon. The teachers were wonderful—welcoming us in and already thinking about future ways their students could help, even suggesting hand-painted thank-you cards.
When people ask about our staff or our team, this is what I tell them: our community is our team. Working together matters. Community matters. As we say at Walt’s Waltz, Our Community is the Masterpiece.
We are a grassroots nonprofit, and after six years of showing up, it feels like something is beginning to rise.
There are no photos from yesterday, but I hope these words help you see what we saw—the goodness, the care, the beauty of the human spirit. We are here because of moments like this, and because of people like you.
VisitGreenville SC
