Spring semester at William Jewell College means a lot of things for seniors, but for Pryor Leadership Fellows, it means it’s time to start the legacy project for 2021. This year the group decided on funding and turning a shipping container into a functioning learning center for MO Hives, with hopes for completion in early May. 

MO Hives is a local nonprofit that Legacy project champions, Kylee Newton, senior accounting and nonprofit leadership, and Megan Sprague, senior psychological science and nonprofit leadership major, interned with during the summer and fall. Founded in Kansas City in 2019, MO Hives works to bring education and excitement back to the honey bee. 

“By creating a healthy urban apiary model that can be duplicated in other Missouri cities, MO Hives KC will inspire communities, provide experiential learning opportunities, amplify community garden yields, increase bee populations, and beautify previously blighted property,” MO Hives shared on their website. 

Newton and Sprague both fell in love with MO Hives and their mission. 

“I was first exposed to MO Hives KC in my fundraising class here at Jewell,” Newton said. “I immediately connected with their mission to restore the bee population and make an environmental impact in KC. The founders of this amazing organization are making small strides everyday that have a huge impact.”

2021 Pryor fellows wanted to choose a project involving education, as COVID-19 has greatly impacted the freedom and productivity in the Kansas City education system. After this home base is built, it can be utilized for storage, field trips and community gatherings. The group hopes that this base will be a beneficial space for not only young students but the whole KC area.

On top of transforming the inside of the shipping container, Pryor Fellows are working to build a 12-foot surrounding deck with wheelchair access in order to support an outdoor gathering area. The goal is to use as many recycled and sustainable resources as possible – from seats to hooks – so Pryor can stay within budget and have a better environmental impact. 

“This project will impact everyone in the community,” Newton said. “Bees are vital. Pollinators impact the air we breathe, the beauty we see, and the food we eat. MO Hives is creating a space to sustain and grow the pollinator population. The completion of our outdoor education center will also open the door for opportunities to learn about bees and sustainable agriculture. This initiative will bring STEM back into the community.”

The fundraising and logistics committees have started a GoFundMe and designed shirts to raise a goal amount of $12,000. The group is also looking at hosting a larger event once the weather improves. The event would possibly involve food trucks and outdoor lawn games around the quad. Pryor Fellows plan to finish fundraising by mid-April, so the group can break ground on the project by the end of the month.

More specific details regarding future fundraising, events and the finished product will be available on the Pryor Legacy 2021 Facebook and Instagram pages.

Hammerhand has been a go-to coffee shop for many William Jewell College students since its opening in 2016. The company brews its own coffee and offers everything from basic pour-over to espresso milkshakes. The shop had to close in June because of structural concerns and landlord disagreements. Alex Merrell, the owner and operator, has high hopes that they will be able to reopen at their new location soon with some exciting new features. 

In June, the original Hammerhand location started to experience structural challenges and landlord struggles.

“Ultimately what led to the closure was a conflict with the landlord. We had some constructional concerns, and historically have throughout the course of us being there,” Merrell said. “I started hearing what I thought was something crumbling inside the walls, which made me very concerned, and the landlord just wasn’t handling the concerns properly, and this also happened to be when we were in the middle of renegotiation.” 

Hammerhand chose to not renew their lease and to protect their customers and business by switching locations. 

The new location is at 249 West Mill Street, only blocks away from the old location. Some new exciting features of the new space are more seating room and a parking lot. The shop is also pursuing a new theme and menu.

“We’ve had this new location for about two and a half months now and we are working on getting contractors and city approval, which has been a very frustrating and difficult task due to [COVID-19] and the demand of contractors rising and permits being stacked up in the city department,” stated Merrell.

While Hammarhand can’t offer an exact timeline or date due to these complications, Merrell is hopeful that construction can be completed in the next month with the opening taking place by the end of the year.

“It’s a pretty unique opportunity actually. We’re effectively starting a brand new business, but we already have clients, so there’s certainly a bright side to it, even though it has been frustrating. We get to reinvent ourselves a little bit here,” Merrell said. 

At the new location, Hammerhand is excited to offer a full bakery with a  pastry chef making baked goods in-house – so customers can get breakfast and coffee at one location. 

With the new location, Hammerhand is redoing its aesthetic to be quite different from the previous location.  

“We’re doing brighter colors and fancy floral wallpaper. The layout will be different.” Merrell said. “But overall the core business will be the same,” 

With all of these new features, many are finding it hard to wait for the reopening. Until then, Hammerhand coffee is available at Liberty’s Hyvee and online on their website. Hammerhand coffee can also be found at PH Coffee in Pendleton Heights, Crepe KC in Gladstone, Paisley Perk in Karney and Cornerstone Coffee in Smithville. 

Joe Biden’s merch shop seems to be poking fun at President Trump to an extreme, but I’m not mad about it. The most recent drop on the site is a fly swatter with “Truth over Flies” written on the handle, which came out right after last week’s vice presidential debate, during which a fly landed on Vice President Mike Pence’s head and stayed there for well over two minutes.

Biden seems to be trying to appeal to millennials and Gen Z by creating memes and merch for his campaign. He even created avatar merch for the game Animal Crossing that regained popularity around April and May this summer. 

Personally, I think it’s a great marketing strategy and way to appeal to the younger generations. It gives them options to express their support in a more creative way. I ordered the “I Paid More Income Taxes Than Donald Trump” stickers right after Trump’s 2017 tax returns got released and am super excited to put them on my laptop and water bottle. 

Biden’s site updates quickly – about an hour and a half after the fly flew off of Vice President Pence’s head the fly swatter went live on the website – with the newest arrivals appearing soon after jokes become popular in the news. 

This is an important aspect of profiting from a meme since jokes only stay popular and funny for a week or two. So far, Biden’s campaign sold over 35,000 fly swatters in around a week. 

I will say the prices are a bit steep, and the shipping time is nothing like Amazon. I ordered a two-pack of stickers Sept. 28. They shipped out Oct. 9, and have yet to arrive. 

A two-pack of stickers cost $7.50 before shipping, a fly swatter cost $10 and a single cat collar that says “No Meowlarkey” is $28. I would maybe understand those prices if we were still in primaries or if he wasn’t the Democratic nominee, but the idea of paying $13 after shipping prices for two stickers caused me to hesitate on my purchase.

“Every time that you can sell a fly swatter for more than the fly swatter costs, that is money in the pocket of the Biden campaign, and it means that they can spend more on get out the vote, messaging to voters, ads on TV,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at Stetson University College of Law who wrote a book on political branding.

The merch is more of an avenue to donate to the Biden-Harris campaign while also receiving a small token of appreciation. Honestly, I don’t mind paying $13 to show that I don’t support Trump, although I do wish the stickers would come before Election Day. 

By now we have all heard the warnings of how bad social media can be for you. For example, that social media, when used consistently, may paint unrealistic expectations for your life and can cause way too much overthinking. 

While this is true, I think there’s a way to find a balance and make social media both beneficial and fun. It’s all about setting boundaries between you and your phone and realizing that all your accounts on social media are for yourself, and no one else. 

The biggest apps out there that have the potential to be detrimental to our generation are Snapchat, Instagram and Tik Tok. These apps portray unrealistic lives and body images through editing and filters. I think we all have been there and tried to take a million different photos for a selfie just so we could look good for our feed. Personally, I don’t think this is bad, though. It’s okay to take photos and post them and feel good about how you look. Where it gets toxic is in the reason behind posting it. 

If you are posting a photo and then taking it down because it didn’t get enough likes or you think you look bad in it, then it might be time to take a break from social media. However, once you start thinking of social media as your platform to express yourself, then the selfies and accounts you follow and things you see on your feed become super beneficial for yourself, and you stop worrying about the likes and comments. 

Follow who you want to follow. Social media can be used to either build yourself up or knock your image down, so if you follow accounts that impact you positively and add a smile to your day, it’s a lot better for your health. This means you should follow what you find inspirational and helpful, not just who has a lot of followers. For me, that means lots of dog and food accounts and zero Kardashians. I think it’s also really important to not feel bad about muting an account or blocking someone on Snapchat or Instagram – it’s not petty. They won’t know, and you will be so much better off not seeing things that might distract you or cause you to overthink things.

Lastly, take a break. There are a million ways to enforce this ideal but I think deleting the apps for a week or two can be really refreshing. Now I know this can be scary, but your streaks and likes are not as important as your mental health. If Snapchat is distracting you from getting things in real life done, tell your friends you’re taking a break, and delete the app – they can text you. For Instagram, you can actually temporarily suspend your account so you can’t even receive notifications. You can also turn off notifications for apps for a temporary break or give your phone to a friend when studying. This is usually what my friends and I do, and it really works to stay focused on what you actually need to do instead of reacting to every notification that pops up. 

In the end, you can either have a healthy relationship with social media by setting time limits, following accounts that you like and not overthinking it, or a toxic one that is difficult to break. You just have to remember that it’s supposed to be fun and that it is yours to do with what you want.