Mural Project for Youth Art Month

I will let the pictures speak for themselves, please check out this album of our hardwork. I do want to say that I am extremely proud to be a part of such an energized community and to work with such passionate students. Everyone worked so hard, despite the cold and the wind, to finish the project. It looks beautiful! Great job, Everyday Leaders!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=laura.cleare&target=ALBUM&id=5319067017216915457&authkey=Gv1sRgCKP53YaP5f34dQ&feat=email

Week Seventeen: Field Trip to WonderRoot

This is such an exciting week! As Youth Art Month comes to a close, we are getting ready to complete our big project. On Tuesday, students continued to work on flyers and logistics for their Global Youth Service Day Project. Thursday, we took a field trip to WonderRoot to learn more about their organization. Volunteer Rebekah showed the students around the building. Students saw the community space, art gallery, recording studio, library, media lab, and even got to go inside the darkroom. Membership is $10 per month or $60; membership for students is absolutely free! To learn more about this artist space and their classes (free with membership!), please check out: http://www.wonderroot.org/


Students also has the chance to meet the muralist working on their project, artist Valerie Lake. She is very excited to be working with such a great group of students. She loved their ideas and did her best to create a mural with only their vision in mind. Due to the thunderstorm, the mural project will take place this Sunday, March 29th from 9 am - 5 pm. Please come by and check out their work!

Week Sixteen: Expression Beyond Journaling

As the students know, we journal a lot. It serves three purposes: 1) it gives students a space to express themselves freely, 2) it gives me a space to dialogue with the students and receive constant feedback, and 3) is a reflection space, allowing for lessons learned and service experienced to sink in. For this week, instead of journaling, I brought in canvases, paint, markets, and paper and allowed the students time for self-reflection and expression. We had a lot of fun and the students produced some very intriguing and beautiful work.

To continue the work on our projects, students also followed up on in-kind donation letters, voted on their topic for student letters, and discussed how they will engage the children at Genesis, the transitional shelter they are fundraising for. The day to facilitator group play with the young children will be on Tuesday, May 2.

Students received two in-kind donations this week: ice-cream sundae coupons from Morelli's Ice Cream shop on Moreland for prizes for the dodgeball tournament and primer for our mural project from Lowes at Edgewood - thank you Morelli's and Lowes!

Week Fifteen: Article Writing and Mural Preparations

With two big projects in the works, the weeks are going by fast! The students finished their articles for the Courier and the Porch Press. The majority of the time was spent planning out the mural. The students held an intense session brainstorming, creating images, and debating the importance of symbols and monuments in the city of Atlanta. Russell had a create idea and came up with the central theme of our mural: a phoenix. I would love to tell you more about what will be on the mural, but this is something I think we should wait until you can actually see it. Thanks again, Alicia, for coming out to help us!

We started off the week with great news: Earthshaking Music in the East Atlanta Village has responded to our in-kind donation request and are giving Everyday Leaders prizes for the winners of our dodgeball tournament. They were more than excited to support their local community. Thank you Earthshaking Music!!

Here is the article David, Noah, and Camille wrote for the Courier and the Porch Press:

Everyday Leaders Update
The Fight to End Homelessness Dodgeball Tournament
Fight Homelessness, Play Dodgeball

The youth volunteer group, Everyday Leaders, is holding a dodgeball tournament on April 24th (Global Youth Service Day). The tournament will be held in order to help and gather donations for an organization called Genesis. Genesis is a non-profit volunteer organization that is an emergency transitional community for homeless newborns and their families. Until the tournament, we will be fundraising to help gather donations for Genesis. Here is their wish list:

+ Non-perishable food + Baby wipes
+ Office supplies + Diapers
+ Cleaning supplies + Pillows
+ First aid supplies + Clothing
+ Towels and washcloths + Bed linens
+ Blankets and quilts + Bath soap

You can bring these items to us by way of the container in the office or on the day of the tournament. If you don’t think you can donate an item, you can donate $5, but we would really like you to bring an item. Now this is our big project for Global Youth Service Day, and is one of our main focuses but we do have other projects. One of them is for Youth Art Month.
The project is a youth-based volunteer project that will hopefully brighten up one street corner. The Everyday Leaders will be working with WonderRoot (a non-profit arts organization committed to uniting artists and community to inspire positive social change) to do a mural at the corner of Glenwood and Moreland, the big building with graffiti on it right next to Buffalo China. You know, the old payless shoe store. WonderRoot artists will be helping us draw out our mural design and help us complete the project. We are looking for volunteers, mainly youth. And we hope that the parents or guardians of the youth can stick around and also help out. Sign up with a representative from Everyday Leaders and sign up soon!

- This has been a message from Everyday Leaders

Week Fourteen: Media Relations & New Partnerships

What an exciting week! Students wrote more letters (and are learning all of the paperwork that goes into project planning!) to Georgia Public Broadcasting, 11 Alive, and some local neighborhood newspapers telling them about their Global Youth Service Day Project. While seeking some media attention, students also began the article writing process to keep the local public informed (The Courier and the Porch Press) of what we are up to at Everyday Leaders. Students started working on some of the logistics of the dodgeball tournament by creating rules to keep everything organized.

Thursday was very excited as we started our four week engagement with guest organization: WonderRoot! Alicia Coleman, art education major from University Georgia, artist, and WonderRoot volunteer, came to lead the class in a discussion about public art. She helped the students understand the scope of their project, decide who it is for and why. Through a democratic process, students decided on a mural project to help clean and brighten up a building on Moreland and Glenwood. We have already received permission from the building owner to cover the graffiti with the students' art (with the help of WonderRoot artists) and are working on more details. WonderRoot will continue to work with us each Thursday through March and also on our Youth Art Month Day of Service on March 28th. If you are interested in participating (open to the public!), please email me, Laura Cleare, at lcleare@handsonatlanta.org.