*Getting the word out!*

Hello everyone out there! It has been a while since I posted, but it doesn't mean we haven't been busy as ever doing all we can to help Art Creation Foundation for Children in Jacmel, Haiti. I feel so fortunate to have literally hundreds of middle school art students putting their thought and creativity each day into ways to evolve this project into better and better versions of itself. Our latest endeavor: Handmade Business Cards! And let me tell you, it makes me wish all business cards were this fun, this sincere and this artistic.

I gave my students tons of materials to play with: printed papers, fun paints, stickers, pens, crayons, markers and lots of design books to help with visual brainstorming. We talked about the position as artists and fundraisers that we are in and the need to keep finding ways to get the word out and communicate with the public. Our pals at the Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore have been asking for little take-away cards to go with the hearts to give people information and a reminder of how they can help, or at least pass the good news along. The result are these fun, fresh and sometimes quite poignant art-cards, each a one-of-a-kind creation from the students at Patapsco Middle to you!

The kids had a lot of fun with it, and I have to admit, I really did too. So much so that I brought materials home to do some over the weekend....so did some very invested kids! I can't wait to see what new cards they come up with.

I also dropped off 41 more hearts to the museum and there about 120 in various stages of completion at school waiting to dry or be fired. We are so excited that they continue to sell out pretty quickly at The Sideshow store inside the American Visionary Art Museum. To this, I can also happily announce that they are being sold at our school store right to the students and teachers to raise even more funds for ACFFC!

Please continue to follow the link on this blog to the school in Haiti for regular and detailed updates on the kids. There is still tremendous need there. The children are still living amid ruins in tents and taking baths out of basins with basically no privacy. But they are coming to school each day, making art, supporting each other through friendship and showing tremendous strength and unity as they live each day in the wake of such catastrophic change.

So help us get the word out!!! Forward the blog! Go to the Avam! (you can go to the gift shop for free, but do yourself a favor and enjoy the enormous unique art collection they have there! www.avam.org) And each day, give thanks for the little things that all the children in Jacmel know all too well are not so little after all.....