Mybench has officially gone international!
My Dad travels to Poland offen for work and while there he enjoys riding and running around the countryside. There is a long stretch of bike lane near a river where he likes to run often. He’s noticed that there is no place to rest or stop for the entire stretch without blocking the small lane.
So, when I went to Poland to visit him, we had the perfect idea to build a bench there! We called one of my mom’s colleagues who lives in Warsaw and is from Poland to bring his entire tool kit in his car. We also invited a kid around my age, Max from Ukraine, who used to go to school in Poland.
I went with him to the ‘HomeDepot’-like store in Poland called OBI. There we bought a shovel, wood, and some screws. Unlike the benches I built before, they did not have a solid piece of wood we could use for the seat. We had to make use of two 2 x 6s. This is the fun part though, adapting your plans to unexpected differences in places allows the process to be more interesting. Furthermore, adapting the benches themselves better to the local communities so they can impact more people, also adds nuance to the process. Max helped translate and talk with the workers when we needed to cut the wood.
All in all, we spent 35 euro (152 zloty) which, trust me, is much cheaper than in Germany.
We then drove to the action site, parked both cars trunk to trunk, and started assembling the bench. At OBI, we bought these massive construction screws which ended up being a nightmare to screw the seat to the legs. They broke the metal drill bit on our first attempt, and we had to run to the store to get a new one.
After around 2 hours and 30 minutes, we finally finished cutting, assembling, and anchoring the bench into its location. The sun was setting and we all drove to eat some Polish Pierogies, a hearty and well deserved meal.
But the story is not over.
On my second trip to Poland, my dad mentioned how he had spotted an elderly woman sitting on the bench reading. He noted that the bench seemed to shake a little bit, not good!
We went back to OBI and bought some easy-concrete, a bucket, and a bigger shovel (a total life-saver). We drove back to the site with 8L of water, and mixed the concrete until it was apple-sauce consistency. We dug deeper holes around the legs and filled them with concrete.
I had never anchored a bench with concrete before, so we were both going into this process blind.
After two days, we came back to finish the supports off with the dirt we displaced and the concrete was completely solid. I jumped, pushed, and rolled around on that bench but it didn’t move one bit.
For my first time pouring concrete, I have to say it was a complete success. The whole point of this organization is to get people outside, trying and building something new, creating new friends, and ultimately building something impactful and practical for the community in the process.
I am happy to say we accomplished all of those things through our first international bench.
A special thanks to Marcin, my new friend Max, my dad, my mom, and Andrii for helping and supporting my dreams.
The bench was built for public use. It’s located near the Old Town of Krakow, Poland.
