Passion project yields blue masterpiece
Alanna Burwash loves LEGO. So when Dar Al Amal Receptionist Alysha Kayll was cleaning out a storage room on a recent cold day and came across some of the “gold”, as Burwash calls it, Kayll instinctively knew who she had to show it to.
Kayll said to Burwash that she should take the LEGO home so her kids could play with it, saving the plastic construction toy from imminent destruction in the process. However, Burwash had other ideas.
Upon opening the container and discovering it was all Dar Al Amal blue bricks — potentially from an exercise exactly the same as she herself was about to embark on, or at least very similar — she knew her children would not be playing with this set of LEGO anytime soon.
It was her turn to have some fun with the thermoplastic polymer.
Following a line of logical thought Burwash decided the Dar Al Amal logo would be a good finished product for the pieces at her disposal.
She then set about building the first eight letters over one of her lunch breaks, having to stop with the “O” in limbo as work was calling.
At that point her colleague Hazel Senko wrapped up her covering reception duties and stumbled across the masterpiece in motion Burwash was building.
As it was now Senko’s turn for lunch, she was entrusted to turn “Master Fl” to “Dar Al Amal” and hunkered down to put together the pièce de resistance.
Three tries and a whole lunch hour later, the “O” for Dar Al Amal was finished.
Burwash helpfully pointing out it took Senko as long to build one letter as it did for her to make eight.
But, and this is where this story becomes mildly impressive, all was done without any instructions or blueprints or schematics or nothing.
Merely mental prowess and fortitude and the dedication and willingness to sacrifice one’s lunch hour for the greater good and company cause.
Words finished, Burwash added the tip of the iconic Dar Al Amal arrow the next day during her lunch and topped things off with a model choke.
After proudly showing their work to the communications and marketing department for the purpose of potential content utilization (or so one surmises), it was annoyingly pointed out to them that the logo did not sport a trademark symbol, thus jeopardizing its external dissemination.
A ™ was quickly crafted and tacked on, ensuring adherence to our brand guidelines.
Thus, the LEGO story, as it has been recounted by those involved.
Dar Al Amal Administrative Assistant Alanna Burwash and Dar Al Amal Project Coordinator Hazel Senko pose proudly with the Dar Al Amal LEGO masterpiece they built.
