(upbeat music) - Hi.

You are tuned into "You Oughta Know" and here's what's coming up next.

Get the protocol, practices, and procedures to navigate graduations, invitations, and thank you notes.

This Germantown resident turns those boxes you toss out into architectural wonders.

You won't believe your eyes.

Plus, a Delaware intergenerational project is helping students hone their craft while providing help to the homeless.

(upbeat music) Welcome to the show.

I'm Shirley Min.

Sophomores at Delcastle Technical High School in Wilmington are putting their carpentry skills to good use.

They're building looms that are sharpening their skills and helping their community at the same time.

(calm music) (saw whirs) Inside Tom Gamber's carpentry class, these high school sophomores are using their woodworking skills to make looms.

- So if you get a hammer out, right, and you just tap it in, the rest of it will thread in pretty easy.

On a yearly basis, we try to find at least one project that has some type of a community impact.

- [Shirley] This year's project is for Bags2Mats, an initiative where volunteers use the looms to weave mats for the homeless using repurposed plastic bags.

The mats create water-resistant comfort and protection from the cold ground.

- I was able to teach the students, read the drawings, and be able to replicate what there was on the drawings to create the project.

So far we have created the three that we said that we would do, and my intention is to have at least another two by the end of the school year.

It's amazing to see for a 14 and 15-year-old student how much they can possibly do.

(upbeat music) - It was really fun doing this project.

I always like to help other people.

If it's gonna put a smile on somebody's face at the end of the day, that's definitely my biggest goal.

(upbeat music) - I thought that it'd be a kind of long process, but honestly really worth it for the homeless.

- The project, they know it inside and out at this point, and I think I could turn it over to them and they would have very few, if any questions as to what they need to do to complete the whole entire project.

So to be able to take the skills that you've learned and transfer them into something good is I think the most important part that we teach here.

- [Shirley] Once the looms are completed at Delcastle, they'll make their way here to the Newark Senior Center, where volunteers with Volunteer Delaware 50+ meet twice a month.

- It's a group of volunteers to just get together regularly to collect plastic, sort plastic, cut plastic, and then loop it together.

(cheerful music) We love our traditional shopping bags.

We also take the dry cleaning bags, the liners, bread bags, newspaper sleeves, produce bags.

You'd be shocked how much plastic we get because there's just an abundance of it.

- The bags are looped and knotted into plarn or plastic yarn.

Volunteers will then crochet the plarn into mats or weave it on the loom.

And no plastic goes to waste.

Any scraps are stuffed into a padded envelope and then sewn into a pillow.

My friend Bob here is showing me the ropes.

Or should I say, plarn?

- Oh, perfect.

See, this is why you need new fresh for it.

- [Shirley] Bob's the one who reached out to Delcastle in the first place, asking if they would take on the project for Bags2Mats.

(upbeat music) - [Guadalupe] The idea of having the kids make items and also be free of charge to the program 'cause we don't have any funding for it.

It was just, it was perfect.

- Kids and seniors working together to help their community and the environment.

Statewide, Bags2Mats has made over 600 mats with each one saving 600 plastic bags from going to the landfill.

Meanwhile, Tom with Delcastle says next school year, he is confident his students will be able to produce as many looms as Bags2Mats needs.

Well now from the creative use of carpentry and weaving to the genius behind the large-scale architectural models made out of cardboard.

The Architectural Marvels of Kambel Smith is an exhibit on display in historic Germantown that's receiving rave reviews.

- [Interviewer] How long did it take you to make the bridge?

- About three months.

- That's crazy, he did it all by hand by himself from scratch.

- Yep.

- [Interviewer] Out of what?

- Cardboard.

(somber music) - People see his work, see him working outside of our Germantown home, and they wonder when they can see his pieces in an actual exhibition setting.

Two exhibitions that he had in Philly were downtown, but not a lot of people got to see those.

Most people in the area see his work on our front lawn.

So everyone was excited to see something coming to the area where you could see all of his pieces together.

So to me it was kind of like coming home with his pieces to see the excitement of his pieces being shown in this historical setting and in an area that he grew up.

(somber music) I realized he was an artist when he hid pictures from me, pictures of characters that he drew to symbolize who he was.

He crumpled the papers up and hid 'em in a vent in his bedroom.

But as I uncrumpled the papers, I saw images of, it was a a gold ribbon who was some type of superhero that he had drawn.

This gold ribbon with muscles, arms, and legs.

I took the papers to work with me and I started creating stories and I would come home every day and I started telling him stories with his characters and that got his attention.

(playful music) - I started to paint after my uncle was, talked to me about the techniques, the oil paint.

Yes, I was self taught.

- The evolution from a painting to cardboard sculptures came when I became ill and we couldn't afford the canvas he was using.

So he started to rummage through trash and grab boxes and he would paint on them.

The boxes absorbed the paint, so everything became light real fast and he didn't like that.

So he discovered a way to manipulate the boxes into sculptures.

So he would just find boxes throughout the neighborhood and he would create sculptures out of 'em.

And when I saw this, when I saw him creating the sculptures, you know, I kind of got him into history.

Germantown has a lot of history and I started getting him involved in learning about history and the detail in buildings, historic buildings.

(playful music) So he really liked detail, so I figured he would get a kick out of that.

Identifying buildings that he liked.

- I've seen an art museum before.

It's in Philadelphia.

It's a museum of art.

I was sat down the step, they were playing music.

- [Lonnie] That one, he got discovered by a New York curator.

And that piece ended up on the cover of New York Times.

He sees certain ways to use other materials to enhance the details in the building.

If the material adds the nuances to the piece, he'll use it.

- The most challenging, it'll be the Burj Khalifa.

(upbeat music) - He has ability to see scale, so he doesn't use anything to measure.

He can just see the scale.

This was a symbol and a name that we came up with maybe about 20 years ago, Autisarian.

We needed a world where people accepted neurodiversity.

Autism was a gift.

But the world that we lived in, people didn't accept him.

It was, he's got a problem.

His work is something that you can't capture in a picture.

You have to see it.

(upbeat music) I don't know what he's gonna do next.

There are times I think that he can't get any better than he already is, but then he'll do something else that proves me wrong.

He's getting faster and he's discovering new ways to get faster.

New ways to add detail.

I mean, he adds lights.

I'm glad that he's doing something that he loves.

That makes me happy, and to see him grow.

It's something that's already in their soul, so he's a master at it, and you can't get any better than that.

- This next story comes from our climate desk reporter, Susan Phillips.

She introduces us to an organization whose green thumb is helping to fix our planet's climate crisis.

- Good morning, everybody.

- [Children] Good morning.

- Thank you.

How are we feeling today?

Give me a thumbs up if you're feeling good.

Black Girls with Green Thumbs has been running green thumbs in your school for the past four years in the Philadelphia school system.

Many times when you ask a child where their food comes from, they'll say the supermarket.

So we really wanna change that and make sure that kids really connect to where their food is grown.

- We're here at Emlen Elementary School in Mount Airy.

I'm in Sarah Nicholson's autistic support class.

I'm here with Pamia Coleman and Latiaynna Tabb.

And they are interested in tackling climate change one seedling at a time.

- So we really want to help the children prepare to be more self-sufficient in the future.

So they're getting hands-on practice here with the Green Thumbs in their school program.

They get to grow their own microgreens, they get to grow their own plantlings indoors that we transfer out into the garden in the warmer weather.

So they really get that earth to table experience.

So last month, the kids got a chance to set up their own mini greenhouses in which today we're actually gonna plant the seeds of.

And today we have sunflower microgreens that were grown and started here in the classroom last month.

And then we get to taste them.

- Tell me about why it's important to do this with autistic kids.

- [Pamia] A lot of times these kids get left behind and I don't think that it's fair.

I am a parent of an autistic child.

Many of the things that you see that we do here in the classroom, we were doing these things at home and I just saw how much he grew from practicing these things.

- So what advice would you give other parents who are looking to cut their carbon footprint but also pass those lessons on to their kids?

- I think growing your own food is a big step to self-sustainability and to growing confidence in children.

Once kids see that they're able to grow something and they're able to take it in the house and either eat a piece of it or make a smoothie, it really starts to stick in their brains that they are capable of caring for themselves in a different way.

And I think it's a really important lesson.

- The New Jersey Pinelands is a diverse and unique ecosystem.

Since 1989, a local organization has been the leading voice to protect this natural resource.

- The Pinelands Preservation Alliance was founded in 1998 to be an advocate for the pinelands.

- To have a place that is a national reserve and a UNESCO biosphere reserve is unique and people really love it.

- We attract people who think of themselves as environmentalists and they want to get involved and they wanna support what we do.

But we also need to reach people who don't necessarily think of themselves as environmentalists to understand what role a place like the Pinelands can play in the quality of their lives.

Since 1980, the Pinelands have enjoyed the benefits of the nation's strongest regional growth management environmental protection program, the Pinelands Protection Act and the Comprehensive Management Plan.

So across 1.1 million acres, people of New Jersey decided to try to protect these hundreds of thousands of acres of surviving forests and wetlands by instituting rules for conservation.

That system of planning needed to have citizen activists advocating for it to be implemented consistently and fairly and improved.

That was the purpose of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.

- When I first started, some of our biggest threats and challenges had to do with people wanting to undo the plan that was created.

I would say that has evolved over time where there's a lot more of acceptance, but there's still threats.

And so with that, our organization has to also move with those threats and find new ways of engaging people, educating people, and having them come to love and know this place.

- Come on.

- [Jaclyn] People are more motivated to protect what they know and love.

And Pinelands Adventure was created in order to get people to know and fall in love with the Pinelands.

And in so doing then hopefully they come back protected and realize what those protections mean.

- [Carleton] In 2020, we founded Rancocas Creek Farm, 72-acre chemical-free regenerative farm.

And we're finding that it brings people who weren't necessarily connecting with our policy-driven mission, but are really interested in their health and recognizing that they and their families can benefit from having access to locally grown fresh produce.

Then they start to think about what that means.

What does that mean for the landscape?

What does that mean for the kind of farming that's done around here?

- Farming is a cultural environmental asset in the Pinelands and elsewhere.

Our hope is that our Rancocas Creek Farm will serve as a model for other farmers and other farmland property.

- We also created a program to try to make sure that everybody gets to enjoy natural places, particularly including people with disabilities and their families and caregivers.

That now has blossomed into a statewide initiative called Nature Accessible for All that we are facilitating to find ways to make all these wonderful natural places we've created in New Jersey accessible for everybody.

- Knowing that I'm helping to keep this place in existence and passing that on to future generations is rewarding.

- Our next guest made her first appearance on "You Oughta Know" recently, teaching us proper dining etiquette, the do's and don'ts at a table while eating.

Well, as we are in the thick of wedding and graduation season, she has more valuable etiquette tips for us.

Welcome to Crystal Seamon-Prinas, founder of South Jersey Etiquette School.

Crystal, welcome to "You Oughta Know."

- Thank you, thank you for having me.

- We're gonna start with weddings just because it's gonna get crazy.

- Yes, it's that season.

Wanna talk about when save the dates and wedding invitations should go out.

How far before the event?

- Great question.

So save the dates should be sent out six to eight months in advance.

If it's a destination wedding, eight to 12 months.

Invitations, on the other hand, should be sent out six to eight weeks in advance.

And if it's a destination wedding, three to four months in advance to give guests the opportunity to prepare.

- Got it, yeah, you wanna give them time to make their travel accommodations, right?

As far as gifts for weddings, how much, ballpark, should people be spending and does that price change if you know the couple very well?

- So I would say the range should be, for coworkers, anywhere from 50 to $75.

For friends, 75 to $100.

For close friends and family, anywhere from 150 to $300.

Again, if it's a destination wedding, I'd say 50 to $100 because you're asking the guests to pay for all the other accommodations.

- This is so good because you don't always know the price points you're trying to hit.

So it's good to have this information.

- Yes.

- Should you always be giving off the registry or is it okay to kind of go off the registry?

- So I say yes and no to that question.

The registry is where the couple has decided with specific gifts that they would like to have.

So I would say yes, buy off of the registry.

However, if you know the couple well and you know that they would appreciate your gift, it's a personalized gift, then absolutely go off the registry.

- As far as the traditions of who pays for what, it used to be, back in the day, the bride's family would cover the wedding costs, the groom's family would cover the rehearsal dinner.

Is that tradition still around?

- It's changed quite a bit actually.

Now the bride and groom pay for their special event.

However, family can chip in and it's certainly welcomed when it comes to the rehearsal dinner.

Whoever can comfortably pay for the rehearsal dinner, that's who does it.

It could be close friends, it could be family, it could be the bride and groom.

So whoever can comfortably handle that cost.

- I feel like families of brides everywhere just breathed a sigh of relief, right?

- They certainly have.

- And thank you gifts.

Finally, as we wrap up this wedding section.

- Okay.

- How soon after the event should they be sent out?

- Well, I'll start by saying that gifts should always be acknowledged, and anywhere from four to six weeks after receiving the gift, you should send out a personalized thank you note.

- [Shirley] And are we talking handwritten thank you note?

- Handwritten is best.

Yes.

- Got it.

Let's move on to graduations.

We have high school graduates, college graduates.

What are appropriate gifts for these groups?

- And that varies, right?

So it could be cash.

Children love to get cash.

It could be a personalized gift.

It could be tickets to a sporting event.

It could be a jersey, it could be a book, yes.

- Those are great ideas.

If you are gonna give cash, what are we thinking for high school and college?

- Anywhere from 50 to $100 is certainly appropriate.

- Okay.

As far as thank you cards for graduates, should they be sent and can it be done via text or email?

- Okay, so I'm a little torn there because I'm old school, so a handwritten note is always best.

However, these days, they can certainly send a text or an email, but it must be thoughtful.

- Yeah, I am with you, Crystal, on the old school handwritten thank you notes.

- Yes.

- Wanna shift gears here.

A lot of people are looking for jobs out there.

If you have a job interview, 'cause I'm seeing this theme of the thank you notes, right?

- Yes.

- Should you send a thank you note after a job interview?

- Absolutely.

It means a lot to the employer to receive a thank you note and I would say the medium to send it would be email.

- Got it, okay, that's the most appropriate medium.

Crystal, this has been enlightening.

- I'm glad.

I'm glad I'm here to help.

- Thank you so much, Crystal Seamon-Prinas.

- You're quite welcome, and thank you for having me.

- We appreciate you coming on to "You Oughta Know."

- Thank you.

- In this week's flicks, Patrick Stoner sits down with the stars of "The Phoenician Scheme" and delves deep into the filmmaking style of Wes Anderson.

- I've appointed you sole air to my estate, which you may come into sooner rather than later.

- [Liesl] Why?

It's been six years since our last meeting.

- [Zsa-zsa] I have my reasons.

- Which are what?

- My reasons?

I'm not saying.

I'm saying I'm not saying.

- [Patrick] Wes Anderson is not just a director, he's an auteur and I do enjoy his rather unusual films.

"The Phoenician Scheme" is about a ruthless billionaire and all of the other weird things that happen in an Anderson film.

It stars Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera.

- The story I think is very much- - It's rather unusual.

- It's unusual, it's full of contradictions.

That makes it, the characters are full of contradictions, which I think makes it very human.

His vision is perfect for the big screen 'cause it's full of details.

And you might not be able to catch the details looking at it on the phone.

- When you're making this film, you can't know exactly where you are in the frame and what have you.

By this time, do you simply know so much about the kind of things that he's looking for?

It doesn't get in the way of it or can it enhance it?

- Well, I mean, actually you do know where you are in the frame.

- Okay, talk about it, yeah.

- So I had never seen a storyboard before And Wes- - Never?

- No, and Wes doesn't just make a storyboard, he makes an animatic, which is an animated version of the entire film.

- [Patrick] I didn't know that.

- Yeah, so you know exactly what you're doing the next day.

You know what the shot's gonna be, you know where you're gonna be walking, what you're gonna be doing.

And then it's just trusting Wes.

- [Patrick] You've worked with everybody.

Have you seen that before?

- I did a movie with Edgar Wright.

He storyboards everything and you know every music cue, you know even the edit.

You know, he plans his edits ahead.

So, 'cause they kind of, you know, work within the shot that he's creating.

- It's almost makes Hitchcock look like a sloppy director.

- I think it's probably similar to how Hitchcock worked.

These guys kind of come from that tradition, I think, you know.

Nothing is accidental.

- Where do you go inside of yourself to find the parts of a character like this?

- There's no actor that would not ask for help.

I will go and ask for help.

Whether it's from pictures, whether it's from the director, whether it's from inspirations that the director have.

I think he mentioned to me, watch the making of "Apocalypse Now" or read about, you know, someone like Kaluzko Benkin who was a multi-billionaire during the turn of the century.

So things like that, yeah.

- Thank you, thank you.

- Thank you.

- Appreciate it as always with this.

I just was in heaven.

- Oh great, thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And that is our show.

Thank you so much for watching.

I hope you are now in the know.

Goodnight, everyone.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)