USF St. Petersburg student Reuben Pressman won Creative Loafing and Creative Tampa Bay’s 10/100/1000 contest for his project “Swings.”
“We come together saying ‘how could we highlight some of those little things that get invented by the visionaries here in this market and give them a little more opportunity to get more exposure and get some assistance and for one person actually get a little bit of money,’” said Daniel James Scott, associate director in the College of Business and Creative Tampa Bay board member. “When the idea was brought to us, I wanted to make sure our students at USFSP had representation in the program. We had 85 applications pumped through that process. We had 10 finalists with Reuben Pressman and his partner, [Hunter] taking home the final check.”
Pressman, a senior majoring in entrepreneurship (with a triple minor in economics, international business and leadership), won $1,000 for his idea, “Swings.”
“Swings are a simple, inexpensive solution to encourage and engage our Tampa Bay community to swing out of that daily routine,” Pressman said. “It shows that a city cares about it’s community and knows how to have fun, cultivating and inspiring our youth that anything really is possible regardless of environment. We want to show people they can have fun outside of designated ‘fun’ areas.”
Pressman said the idea is to bring the community together. Hunter, a graphic design student and Pressman’s roommate, conceived the idea for his class project. When they started working on it together, the reaction prompted Pressman to enter the contest.
“We had set up two in the city, and each was taken down,” Pressman said. “First in Straub Park, in 24 hours the second in Lassing Park for about 4-5 days.”
Pressman said the swings sparked curiosity.
“A swing is something that everyone knows how to use and knows how to use it,” Pressman said. “You can never be too old or young to swing. We loved how it effectively put strangers together around something on the same level and gather and connected everyone so well.”
Pressman said the future of the program will involve purchasing many swings at $5 per swing.
“We will use these swings to provide a proof of concept to the cities in order to gain approval to continue the project and raise more funding from them and others in the community,” Pressman said. “Second, we will have Swing Project Launch Parties in Tampa Bay Parks to let our community hand paint swings and teach them how to make their own.”
By Tom Chang, online editor Spring ’11
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