This summer I have the wonderful opportunity to be an intern at Free Arts of Arizona*! So what is Free Arts of Arizona? Wonderful question! Essentially, what Free Arts does is work with at-risk youth and uses art as a way to use creativity to promote positive expression and healing in their lives.
Their mission statement is: "Free Arts of Arizona sparks the creative spirit in abused, homeless and at-risk children and their families to inspire and transform their lives through the power of artistic expression.
We plant the seeds of hope and healing to help children build self-esteem, improve social skills, develop trust with caring adults, and learn to express emotions in a positive way."
The main program that Free Arts has is the 20 week mentor program, in which a volunteer will go to either a domestic violence shelter, group home, foster home, etc and bring art activities that walk the children that is supposed to help aid in the healing process. They go there once a week for 20 weeks. Other programs include Free Arts Days, Professional Artist Series, and Multicultural Art Camp (or MAC Camp).
And that is where I come in! I got hired to be their MAC Camp Intern this summer (well--at least until the end of June--after that I'm a general intern there and will float around between departments). MAC Camp is a summer art camp that Free Arts invites children from these shelters, foster/group homes, etc to attend a week long summer camp. The children will be exposed from a variety of different art around the world from Asian Art, to Latin Dance, to Junk Art--whatever their hearts desired! Each class offered at camp is taught by a professional artist. Camp counselors and volunteers help assist the children and in the classrooms. This year, their are two sessions: one that is for middle school students and one for high school students.
As an intern, I will be basically helping Jessica Flowers, one of the program managers of the 20 week mentor program with anything and everything. From doing data entry on the children enrolled in the program, seeking donations, making volunteer reminders calls, designing name tags and helping create documents for the camp counselor books. I also help out in other areas of the program managing department by using eTapestry (www.etapestry.com) to do data entry. eTapestry basically is a database nonprofits use to keep track of donor, volunteers and constituent information. It's a pretty neat tool to use!
So yeah! That's my life for the summer. Or the short version. Sorry this post was very random and vague! More details to come--just wanted to give everyone a general overview on what I've been doing so far!
Peace!
Lauren Z.
*for more information on Free Arts of Arizona, please go to www.freeartsaz.org
