Jade ’25 provides materials and art lessons for young students in her community.
Creating art is important from a young age since students must exercise their creativity and use original thoughts to express themselves. Young artists need support and resources to develop their skills. The goal of my project is to provide art materials and lessons for young students with fewer resources and opportunities to create artwork.
To achieve my goal, I am working with the Bridgeport Covenant School — a small, local middle school — to organize daily art lessons in their summer curriculum. For my classes, I am purchasing a variety of art supplies such as notebooks, pencils, markers, clay, paints, crafting foil, and more. At the end of the summer session, I am donating the supplies to the students so they can continue to use them after classes are done.
So far, my project has been successful in providing diverse activities for students and challenging them to brainstorm ideas. The students especially enjoyed working with air-dry clay, finding fun in making coils and mugs with their own hands.
I had some challenges at first with creating engaging lessons. However, I learned to plan lessons in multiple parts to keep students constantly involved. In addition, I listened to the students about which activities they preferred, and I planned future lessons to revisit those activities.
I hope students walk away from class with a new perspective on art and continue creative projects in the long term.
