Sammie Vance can remember feeling lonely. She was in second grade at Haley Elementary School in Fort Wayne, Indiana. When she saw kids playing during recess, she felt nervous and anxious about asking if she could join in. “I definitely struggled with going up to someone and asking them to play,” she says. “For me and a lot of kids, it’s difficult to do.”
That summer at camp, Sammie saw a video about young people who had installed something called a buddy bench at their school. Buddy benches are special benches designed to help kids communicate when they want someone to play with or talk to. By sitting on a buddy bench, a person can signal that they need a friend, all without saying a word.
Something clicked for Sammie. “The idea resonated with me a lot,” she says. “I wanted to get a buddy bench for my school.”
Sammie started researching whether a bench could be bought locally. She found an Indiana-based company that could make benches from recycled plastic. Sammie loved the idea of a project that combined recycling, community action, and forging friendships. She decided to collect bottle caps that could be recycled into a bench.
Today three buddy benches sit on the grounds of Sammie’s old school. Sammie, now 16, helps others—both kids and adults—navigate the process of installing their own buddy benches. In the past eight years, she has helped build more than 650 benches in the U.S. and other countries, from Mexico to Ghana.