If you build it, the saying goes, they will come. On Saturday, the Dos Pueblos Engineering Academy showed off its newest handbuilt creation, the Capital Campaign Donor Wall, and people came indeed—the people whose generosity gave the award-winning educational experience the ability to build the Elings Center for Engineering Education on the Dos Pueblos High campus. Sandy Seale, DPEA Foundation president, proudly noted that all the metal panels on the wall were handmade by students and staff in the DPEA’s own machine shop. DPEA founder and Director Amir Abo-Shaeer addressed the crowd of familiar faces. “This entire project is entirely due to altruism, to many people contributing to make a greater whole," Abo-Shaeer said. “It is humbling to us to be the stewards of these altruistic gestures of the community to keep this whole program going.”

One of the earliest contributors to the project was The Women’s Fund of Santa Barbara, which gave a major capital gift for the Elings Center. “To see the success of this program, it’s phenomenal,” said Parm Williams of the Women’s Fund. “We’re probably as proud of this gift as we are of almost any other gift, to see how it’s grown. A day like this is awesome, it really gives me a lump in my throat.”