Weston Arts for a Cause: Young Artists Giving Back to the Community
Arts for a Cause Staff
Weston Arts for a Cause is a WHS community service-based organization that connects our love for performing and visual arts with members of our community: simply stated, we love making art – singing, dancing, playing our musical instruments, drawing, reading poetry – and we love sharing our art with the people around us. The club was formed shortly before the onset of the pandemic, which hindered our initial plan for organizing live concerts, museum trips, and activities, so we started looking for alternative methods of community outreach. Our first initiative was our participation in the “Cards for Seniors” drive organized by the Oasis Senior Advisors organization. This effort was dedicated to sending hand-written cards created by club members to the most vulnerable and isolated part of our community, senior citizens living in assisted living centers and nursing homes. We created over 30 cards, with Chloe Caplan and Lola Connelly writing nearly half of them!
We continued to work alongside the Oasis Senior Advisors organization to involve students across the world in sharing their talents with quarantined seniors. We started a Facebook page, filled with wishes of safety and good health from Weston Students, but quickly grew to other parts of the country and even to other continents. The project has lasted for a few months and still continues to upload videos of students performing, whether musical pieces on an instrument or vocals, or spoken word pieces, such as poems and short stories, to be accessible for those living in isolation due to the pandemic.
This felt good, but we wanted to do more. Our solution was to go into a virtual mode to provide a more personal, live experience for our audience. In the words of Nicole Satanovsky, founder and president of Weston Arts for a Cause, “I realized how important live communication was to the elderly when I first joined a Zoom call with my grandparents. They were so happy to see me and be able to look at the expression on my face when they talked to me. It definitely made a difference in their day.” With this in mind, we collaborated with Schoke Jewish Family Service; we organized and performed in a virtual concert which was played live for the senior citizen members of this program. This concert where young musicians from Weston, Westport and Norwalk performed was so well-received that it inspired us to provide more live entertainment on a regular basis. Some of the seniors were so touched by the performances, they were brought to tears. This heartfelt reaction helped us appreciate the importance and impact of our work, especially during these trying times.
Our latest initiative is virtual birthday greetings for the elderly; for a couple of months we have been creating musical videos introduced by personal greetings for senior citizens from the Schoke Jewish Family Service. We have included friends from other states and countries, including Russia, Germany, and Israel to join us in creating these virtual birthday cards. Marina Sapir, board member of the Schoke program, states that “When the seniors hear their names and understand it is personal for them, about them – their faces glow! It is like a breath of fresh air for them – somebody is thinking and caring about them! This group of talented young adults brings so much joy and happiness into these people’s lives!”. Our club’s board member Konstantina Gotouhidis has sung multiple arias over the course of this program, inspiring such joy for our senior citizens. All musical instruments and forms of art are welcome: Madeline Ferrante performed a beautiful lyrical dance, Lola Connelly and Chloe Chaplan recited poetry, Nicole Satanovsky, Alex Peterstam and Brynne Mcgee played violin — Brynne did a lovely rendition of “Happy Birthday”.
We are also currently working on developing a Zoom Art class program, headed by Lianne Saussy and Chloe Caplan, to entertain children since we understand that in the midst of a pandemic, parents are swamped with work and responsibilities, and watching children on top of that is hectic. We hope to do our first set of Zoom classes for Valentine’s Day.
We welcome and would love your participation! If you’d like to participate in our birthday greetings initiative or any of the other activities and projects we have planned, let us know and we will be glad to put you in our schedule!
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