Candy Town - an unseen marvel

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Fernando Olivera helped Michelle Richardson, a student from another classroom, discover the park on her first tour of Candy Town.

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Leslie Jaramillo took an enjoyable exploratory drive through Candy Town, while Fernando Olivera and Alejandro Moreno worked on their houses.

Once upon a time, during the June-July weeks of summer, a Candy Town utopia existed in Bakersfield. Architects designed it without drawing plans, built it from scratch without seeing what they were doing and never knew what their finished city looked like. After July 10, it existed no more. Yet, during the time it was being built and for the week or so after its completion, it was the most exciting city in the lives of 10 children.

All of the children were visually impaired students in the Hart School summer class of Kern County Superintendent of Schools teacher Esthella Brewer, who is herself visually challenged. Beginning about two weeks before summer school started, they had already started planning their magical miniature town. Three large container boxes were flattened to provide the land on which the building would take place. Streets were mapped out with masking tape.

Once construction began, the students insisted that every street and every building have a sweet reference. So, you would find students involved in the building of the “M & M Movie Theatre,” “Ho Ho Hotel,” “Good and Plenty Mall” or “Lifesavers Church” on sugary sounding streets, such as “Bubble Gum Boulevard,” Candy Cane Street” and “M & M Circle.”

Here is how it worked. Brewer and the students brainstormed ideas for the buildings, named them and even their own homes in Candy Town. Instructional aides Ysenia Sarabia and Paula Armstrong constructed the buildings based on the students’ specifications. Braillist Carissa Gonzales helped the students do the Brailling of names on street signs. “It was done that way so the kids could feel and find their way to explore what was on each street,” Brewer said.

Even though this construction did not require an environmental impact report, it was very environmentally thought out. All of the raw materials were items saved from the trash heap. A coffee cup became the “Cocoa Coffee Shop.” At the “Skittles Gas Station” discarded juice boxes were transformed into gas pumps. Swings were made out of drinking straws. Raisin boxes became great garages. Cereal boxes were converted into a hotel and a mall. A used coffee can served as the town’s fire station. Play dough provided the bases to hold up the street signs. They even found a use for a 12-pack beverage holder, as the town’s tallest structure — the “Heath Hospital.” The only non-recyclable items were the matchbox-type toy cars.

“A lot of oral language development took place during the planning,” Brewer said. “It was a project in which all the children could share. Along the way, it improved social and fine motor skills. They had to do the planning and use their creativity. We would do our regular math, reading and writing lessons. Then, the last half hour was devoted to working on the town. The children just came to class ready with more ideas for the town.”

The old expression about “knowing it like the back of my hand” kind of epitomizes how the children got to know their town. They would literally crawl down each street, feeling their way past buildings, learning what each structure felt like, until they came to the Braille street sign where their house was located. Student Fernando Olivera may have known it the best.

“One night he kept me up until one o’clock in the morning explaining every building and house and where they were all located,” said Sara Olivera, Fernando’s mom. “He was so excited that he was planning a city. He said, ‘I love the city,’ and told me, ‘You have to go tomorrow.’ I did and now I know why he was so excited.”

Since July 10 was the last day of summer school, Candy Town had to come down. But it has not totally disappeared. Each student got to take their favorite part home with them. Fernando took the park.


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