Virginia Furniture Market Design Competition awards scholarships to students
Employees at Virginia Furniture Market stores do not have to worry about creating a floor plan display for Black Friday for at least one show room. Liberty FACS Students have it covered.
On Oct. 10, students in FACS 345, Materials and Specifications, entered their work to be judged for the Virginia Furniture Market Design Competition.
The first-place winners of the competition were Alyssa Cirillo, Evelyn Toderic, Maribeth Harrington and Rebecca Orth. They won a $2,500 scholarship, which was split among the four and deposited into their student accounts, Cirillo said.
The students had roughly a month to design a set for a customer space, according to Cirillo. Her team won the competition with their fall-themed living room design.
Each team had worked on their design for four weeks before the competition, designing conceptual sketches and a floor plan for the room, using several furniture pieces from VFM stores in their design. According to Liberty News Service, the winning designs will be implemented in two VFM store locations — Bedford and Rocky Mount — before Black Friday.
The owners of VFM, along with some of their employees, judged the competition. On the day of judging, the students presented their pieces but were not told then who the winners were.
The winners were announced two weeks later, which gave the contestants time to post their ideas on social media for voting. The group that received the most social media votes won the People’s Choice Award — a $500 scholarship. This was a separate competition.
The winning team received a $2,500 scholarship, which was split evenly among the team members.
The pieces chosen from the store factored into the judging.
“They chose a group based on what we presented and what we picked but also what would sell during the season,” Harrington said.
The competition was a class project and was required for a grade. It was the competition that pushed the girls to win. Toderic describes the team as having a competitive nature.
“What made us want to do well was everyone in my group specifically (is) pretty competitive when it comes to competitions, and so we all just put our heads together (to make) sure we did (our) best,” Toderic said.
According to Liberty News, this is the third year that Liberty students have competed in the competition.
“Since 2016, VFM, a retail furniture store with locations in Southwest and Central Virginia has awarded $15,000 in scholarships to Liberty students,” the website said.
Toderic said her favorite part was the decorating.
“The whole competition in of itself was great, but I would definitely say my favorite part of it was after winning, we got a gift card we all could use to buy extra decorations for the display,” Toderic said. “That was probably my favorite part, because for me, my favorite part of interior design is
decorating,”
Harrington said she enjoyed the initial designing and seeing the plan come to life.
“Going to the Virginia Furniture Store and picking out all of our furniture and accessories, as well as coming up with the colors we wanted to use throughout our floor and seeing it all come together (was my favorite part),” Harrington said.
Orth said the team worked well together because of their similarities.
“It was really nice we all had similar styles and taste, so we agreed on a lot of things, and it was fun working together and working with them,” Orth said.
More information about VFM can be found on their website at https://www.vafurnituremarket.com/.