Today is Inspire Your Heart with Art Day! We’ve had some truly inspiring volunteers give their talents to the benefit of our clients. Since the onset of the pandemic and our move to embracing virtual and remote volunteer opportunities, volunteers have crafted beautiful cards for occasions like the Winter Holidays, Christmas, New Year’s, and Valentine’s Day. Not only this, but volunteers have also attached personal notes and cards to donations, like our friends at the Columbus Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Committee, who created cards for the guys in our DD program, in addition to sending them sweets and holiday treats.
Decorations for homes and residences, in the form of wreaths, bows, Santa hats, and garlands decked the halls during the holidays. We managed to decorate entire residences with the amount of beautiful handmade crafts we received!
Handmade placemats from volunteers have produced warm reminders for clients as they sit down for meals that they have an entire community caring about them on the outside.
Art has not only taken on the form of visual arts, either. We’ve had some incredibly talented performers from all ages send in videos to brighten clients’ spirits during these challenging times. Hula dancing, singing, tapping, caroling over Zoom, and string instruments have all been forms of performing arts to send beautiful messages of hope through song.
In the central Ohio area and abroad in faraway places, we’ve had amazing artists contribute to our cause, so our clients have more motivation to continue their journeys toward reentry and recovery.
To our volunteers: you inspire us, you inspire our clients, and you are so appreciated. Thank you for all that you’ve done to keep our clients going during this period of isolation and stress.
In addition to volunteers, our staff keeps our clients engaged through structured activities. Many of our clients love to draw, paint, and creatively express themselves.
If you would like to inspire our clients with art, whether it’s through donation, creating art for clients, or teaching virtual art classes, let us know! We can always use art and craft supplies for our clients.
Please reach out to donate@alvis180.org if you would like to coordinate a donation drop-off, or reach out to volunteer@alvis180.org if you’d like to learn more about how you can get involved with our clients on a remote or virtual basis.