“Art with a PURPOSE”…Memory Project and Beyond!

The summer before I began teaching at the secondary level, I was on the beach with some friends and they mentioned that they had recently read an article about the international Memory Project.  As they explained it to me, I got very excited about using this as a lesson during my first year with my new “older” students!  I immediately went on line that evening (www.thememoryproject.org) to research this and was in contact the next day with Ben Schumaker, the director and founder of this awesome project.  The short version:

“The Memory Project is a unique initiative in which high school or university art students create portraits for children in orphanages around the world.  To do this, the art students receive pictures of children who are waiting for portraits, and then work in their art classrooms to create the portraits.Next, the company coordinates the delivery of the portraits to the children.  The goal of the project is to inspire caring, friendship, and a positive sense of self. The project is directed by the nonprofit organization My Class Cares. “

  

   

The website has a beautiful power point slide show in which U2 sings and it is “goosebump” good!  Every student is engaged and excited to use their creativity and talent to honor a child’s identity and make their life a little bit better!  I think this is one of the most powerful “ART with a PURPOSE” lessons that I teach.  I have done this for the past 3 years.  The first year my students “adopted” 40 children from Honduras, the 2nd year we “adopted” 50 children from Ecuador, and this year we will be adopting again, but we have done something a bit different, springboarding from the original plan.  The cost to participate in this project is $15 a student.  In the past, my students haven’t had a problem raising this money, in fact one student our 1st year went to each of his classes and asked his teacher if he could explain this project to his classmates to generate some excitement and raise some money.  Every teacher gladly allowed him a few minutes to discuss the Memory Project and in 1 day he raised $73!  Amazing!  Again, a project that the whole school can get excited about! 

   

     

We will be doing this in the spring, but last summer I had the awesome opportunity to teach at the Tennessee Arts Academy and I was discussing this amazing project to the teachers in my “class.”  One of the teachers mentioned that she teaches at a special education school and that many of her students are also orphaned, so we decided that it would be fun to do this project not only internationally, but nationally as well.  So right before the Christmas holiday I presented my Draw/Paint students with 35 photographs of Rachel Motta’s students and my students, using whatever media they chose, honored their identity with beautiful holiday portaits of the kids!  We mailed them out and she sent back pictures of her students holding their portraits, the smiles on their faces spoke a thousand words…it was a super holiday gift for both her students and my students as they gave back to the world through their talent! 

This is how we summed it up, to paraphrase from VISA commercials:
Art Supplies= $45
Art Class Time= 5 days
Cost to send the art to Tennessee= $22
Children’s Smiles in Georgia and Tennessee= PRICELESS!

“Art with a PURPOSE”…it’s a magical theme to use as it teaches our students so much more than what the average art lesson teaches…it takes learning to the next level, it engages all students, it gives deep meaning to the art of creating!  I would love to hear if you have participated in the international Memory Project and what your students thought of it…and I hope that many of you will look into using it in the near future!

Debi West, Ed.S, NBCT
North Gwinnett High School
Suwanee, GA
GAEA Past President (2001-2007)
dewestudio@bellsouth.net
http://naea.digication.com/artstuff/Welcome/published