heARTS

We have already started -- our first request was from a local elementary school who specifically needed crayons, markers and glue sticks for their 525 students at a fairly low-income school. By mobilizing our facebook fans (we have 665 so far in just our firs few weeks), we were able to donate over $500 in art supplies to this school in just 2 weeks time. Now we are getting donations of used instruments that will be granted to an elementary school in rural Eastern Kentucky. Their teacher wrote and said they have no money for instruments and she herself volunteers to teach music as an after school program. We also are taking donations of all sorts of arts related items and will be posting a list of what is in our "closet" on our website. Teachers and program directors can go to the site and see if we have anything they can make use of. We also have online a list of volunteers who have offered to do in-school and after-school arts programming for schools in need. We are already working with one school to develop a 6-8 week after school program next Spring that will be a glee club/theater program. They really want to have a performance at the end of the 8 weeks as their school offers no performance opportunities for their kids. One of the neat things is how many people are getting involved. A friend at my school designed our logo. A friend from Nebraska (which is a long way from where I live in Kentucky) designed my website. And I have friends literally from all over the world who are supporting me and spreading our message. And we have even had interest from schools who want to make a request from as far away as Hawaii and Africa and we are working with them to see how we can help them. My hope is eventually to have heARTS clubs throughout the world that will be empowered to help fulfill heARTS mission in their communities.