For kids, art is not simply for arts sake.

by | Jul 16, 2010 | 1 comment

Great article in today’s St. Petersburg Times by columnist Ernest Hooper.

Click Here to read it.

Ernest really captures the spirit of the wonderful young people I’ve been working with at Community Stepping Stones.  Thank God we have uncommonly talented writers like Ernest to tell our story.

By the way, Here’s the letter the kids wrote to President Obama:

Dear Mr. President,

We hope you can take some time out of your busy schedule to read this letter so you will know how we feel about the Gulf Oil Spill.

We are all young people who go to Community Stepping Stones (CSS) in Tampa, Florida.  CSS helps neighborhood kids learn about artwork and study the environment.

We have heard about the Gulf Oil Spill and we are terrified about it. We are very worried that animals are being killed by the oil. We are afraid that soon we will not be able to play on beautiful beaches anymore. We see that the sperm whales and the dolphins and birds are dying. What if you wanted to go to the beach and you couldn’t because there were dead animals and plants and oil everywhere?

All this oil is messing up the food chain. It may not seem like a big deal now, but by the time we grow up and have families, life won’t be the same.

We heard that some people want to keep drilling for oil in the Gulf.  We don’t think this is a good idea.  We, the children of CSS, say “Please, President Obama, don’t let any more animals suffer.” You will be our hero if you can make a clean place for the animals and plants to live.

All the kids at CSS got together and made this big piece of artwork to show how upset we are.  We hope when you and everybody else sees our art you will feel how we feel.

We are asking you from the bottom of our hearts – PLEASE SAVE OUR FUTURE so when we have kids there will still be nice beaches and clean water for the animals.

Thank you for helping us.

The Kids @ Community Stepping Stones


1 Comment

  1. Trish Gregory

    Sigrid, are you planning to post a copy of the artwork that the students sent to President Obama? I’d love to see it and I’m sure others would, too. Congratulations on your success with this project. Trish