Making Candles For Washington Heights

For my project, I wanted to come up with a fun way I could give back to my community and the people who have been working so hard to keep my neighborhood going during Covid-19.  At first, I really struggled with how I wanted to do this. In a world, without Covid-19  I probably would have baked different desserts or made dishes from the different cultures in my neighborhood and given them away to people in my community; but I didn’t know how comfortable people would be receiving homemade foods during Covid. So, some days and lots of brainstorming later  I came up with the idea of making candles and distributing them to people within my community. I had never made candles or worked with wax before and I thought this would be a good way to introduce myself to it. At first, making these candles was really hard for me. I had kind of assumed that making candles was just melting and pouring wax with some adding of colors and flowers in between. Needless to say, I was extremely wrong. It turned out that there’s so much that goes into candle making that you would never expect. Almost every little detail matters, from the exact temperature of the wax when you pour it to the blend of wax you’re using for the candles. After watching lots of youtube videos and talking to an expert about it, I finally managed to perfect the process. And I was finally able to begin to distribute my candles to some members of my community who have kept the neighborhood going through the pandemic; like essential workers and educators. What I think I was most able to get from this process is that you don’t need to make big elaborate gestures in order to give back to your community. Giving back can really look like anything, big or small.