Arts Central joins Partners in Care for Camp Courage
Arts Central teaching artists are providing the healing benefits of art this week to kids attending Partners in Care’s annual Camp Courage event.
Camp Courage, which runs this year fromJuly 19-22, is a free art camp that is open to children and youth who have experienced the death of a family member, friend or classmate. The camp provides a safe and healing environment where children can share and express their feelings of loss and grief through art.
Two of Arts Central’s teaching artists, Sue Wilhelm and Leanne Callahan, will guide more than 60 campers through specific, meaningful art projects.
Older campers (ages 10-14) will be creating clay luminaries; cutting out shapes that symbolize loved ones they have lost as well as each camper’s strength and courage. Younger campers (ages 5-9) will create papier mache Chinese lanterns, which are similar in meaning and interpretation to the luminaries.
This is Arts Central’s seventh year participating in Camp Courage and, according to Interim Executive Director Deborah Allen, “It is powerful to watch these kids channel their grief and love through art and to leave the camp stronger than when they started. Each camper is truly courageous and it is our honor to, in a small way, help them along their path to healing.”
For more information about Camp Courage, please visithttp://www.partnersbend.org/bend-hospice-services/camp-courage/.
About Arts Central
Arts Central’s purpose is to inspire creativity through arts education and to advocate for integration of the arts in all aspects of community life in Central Oregon. Through Art Station, VanGo and Artists in Schools residencies, we provide arts services to individuals, artists and arts organizations in Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties. We accomplish our purpose through three distinct initiatives: arts education, advocacy and cultural trust, and we receive support for our services from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
