Artist Lily Yeh conducted workshops with community members and students twice a month from June of 2004 through January of 2005 at the Pride of Delaware Elks Lodge, Mount Zion Church, and the George Wilson Community Center. These events included story telling, drawing and painting activities, and movement exercises. The meetings created a core group of community members and students, and community members also came to the studio on campus to work on the monument.

This project's achievement is far-reaching. Art critic and educator Linda Weintraub, searching for meaning in the contemporary art, writes that "todayÕs workplace and home life often deprive people of opportunities for human interaction. Surveys report that social disintegration is rampant. Community bonds are rarely established . . . Hallmark cards express our intimate communications" (Art on the Edge and Over, 70). The success of the project lies in the two-way exchange of experiences, knowledge, and information between University of Delaware students and faculty and local community members. This resulted in the design and construction of the public arts projects. Students gained a variety of skills and insights that, according to their statements, has motivated them to become more engaged artists and to continue building for and with the community through their own future projects.