Art Day

For me, the highlight of the month was the art day.  We had about 35 children and 10 teenagers.  We also had all our staff and 11 Volunteers which helped make the day go very smoothly.  I noticed early on that ALL the kids we had were calm.  Everyone was going with the program, there were ZERO meltdowns, and everyone was having fun, and just enjoying themselves. It was great!  We had 45 kids from White Swan doing art for 4 hours without any incident.  As an aside, pretty much every Sunday, there’s a kid or several who has trouble going with the program, but on Art Day, everything went smoothly.  

Some of us spoke afterwards, that we may have given a false impression to the volunteers.  The kids struggle to regulate their emotions, with following directions, with interacting with adults, with completing tasks, in feeling successful, and are often emotionally “fragile.”  But for four hours, they had fun, successfully completed projects, and were able to just be kids having fun making art.  Maybe next time the volunteers come, they’ll see a different side to the kids, but that’s ok.  Empowering the kids, building relationships, deepening trust, and giving them little moments of success go a long way towards helping them heal and pointing them to Christ.

 Woodworking:

Drawing Cartoons:

Painting:

Dancing: