ProjectArt Community Service

Project Art Community Service

1/22/20

Hour: 0.67

Cumulative: 24.95

Word Count: 250+

 I missed the painting classes held at the local healing center in my hometown.  Just the stroke of a paint against a canvas was enough to brush away the worries while concentrating on using various shades to recreate the illusion of texture.

 When I arrived in New Orleans, I first signed up for a library card at the public library, located across the street from the Hospital.  During the winter break, I was looking through the newsletter to check on recommendations and ideas for the upcoming semester and I read about ProjectArt.  Art is a viable stress relief wellness opportunity.  At the Matas Library, there are adult coloring books.  The public also offers adult coloring nights served with coffee.

 ProjectArt is a national organization that has expanded to  New Orleans. I was to help with local marketing with the free arts classes to kids.  My boss was the director but she was out of state.  I was to be the local support to identify viable organizations and provide  marketing strategies.  I knew which organizations primarily worked with youth thanks to my community service from the previous semester.

ProjectArt commissions local artists to serve as instructors.  Milagros is the local artist that was there at  the library to teach art.  It had the opportunity to secure more funding.  I phoned parents to remind kids to come to their classes.   I observed a class and introduced myself to the artist in residence.  I kept pitching ideas.  I informed members of the Dept of the opportunity that was so close to the School of Medicine.  It was perplexing that the School of Medicine did not have a closer connection to the library.  

According to Dr. M, the location of SOM was downtown in order “ to help people.”  The public library is an oasis of free resources that informs the public of affordable and often free resources.  

I also pitched orgs to my boss. Marketing is a lot like pharmacology, because my job is to identify targets.  Then, I identified the local reporter that could cover.

Success.  Project Art was featured in The Gambit.

Creative outlets are important for children.  For families living in poverty, they often feel powerless because they are too young to help with the family’s finances. They may not understand FICO scores and recessions or subprime lending in which predatory lenders unscrupulously target the low-income with high-interest loans that they can never pay, but feel that accepting subprime credit is the only way to survive in a climate of deregulation and little to no assistance. But, children know when their caretakers are stressed or upset, because they are unable to pay for food and shelter, given the near impossibility of achieving social mobility.  The United States practices one of the harshest apathy on poverty.  This is a nation that permits the elderly and children live in fear due to financial and food insecurity, despite its wealth. The outcomes of patients are largely dependently on their zip codes of residence.  It's time to wake up and understand the nightmare of the illusion behind the American Dream; after all, policies that govern the US justify the denial of healthcare to the poorest and to the historically disenfranchised.  After dealing with adults practicing the duplicitous art of cognitive dissonance, it was therapeutic to support youth whose behaviors matched their integrity.