He dashes down the hallway with his prize, evading sight from the school custodians and finally returning to his hiding place in the restrooms, adding this sign to his collection. Almost immediately he speeds down the hallway again, searching for a new treasure.

Colin Bolwerk hid various custodial signs from the school custodians, including custodian Christina Hensley, and Hensley made Bolwerk a customized wet floor sign he could keep with him in response to this. Bolwerk has a form of high functioning autism that causes him to be drawn to different objects such as these. 

“Signs like this tend to attract his attention,” Megan Bolwerk, English teacher and Colin Bolwerk’s mother, said. “[This is] mostly because the way he learned was through visual media.” 

At the beginning of the school year, Bolwerk started collecting these signs and hiding them in the upstairs bathroom. Bolwerk’s mother noticed this was happening and decided they had to prevent this from happening.

“For a few days he had been taking my signs,” Hensley said. “I told him not to but he started taking my other signs.”

The idea of making a sign especially for Bolwerk came from Hensley’s husband one night as they were speaking about the issue. This project took Hensley a day in total to make this sign, including cutting the wood and painting it.

“I thought I might as well make him his own sign,” Hensley said. “I make a lot of art at home so I thought this would be a nice project for him. He was very excited about it. He went home with it and slept with it in his bed with him.”

Hensley spends a lot of free time working on art projects such as these. she has many paintings and and small figurines at her house. Bolwerk leaves the sign in his mother’s room during the school day and takes it home at night.

“I’m just glad to help this child and solve this problem,” Hensley said. “He’s a really good kid that has so much energy, and this helps him get the energy out, so I’m happy to help.”