Love My Neighbor 2 Recover - A Very Special and Memorable Event!

Well, we did it!  It was a truly great event and a celebration of a resilient community spirit through art.  It was one of the first live events in the city as the beginning of the cautious re-opening.  It was a beginning of our joint recovery especially for the communities that were hit hardest by the crisis.  

Huge appreciation and gratitude to the Carson Mayor and Members of the City Council for issuing a city certificates to the winners.  Thank you to CCM Cedric Hicks and MPT Jim Dear for coming in person, presenting the certificates on behalf of the council and making the event even more special.  Importantly, it had shown the weary and long-straggling "Scottsdale" residents that the city is there for them and ready to help. 

It was amazing to see the excitement of the show participants to see their works hung, each receiving the Certificate of Contribution from Artward Initiative, presented by the "Scottsdale" Board President and Artward Initiative Board Member Sadie Dix and then the winners receiving their Certificates of Appreciation by the City Council and beautifully packaged Amazon Gift Certificates from Artward Initiative.  It was topped off by the pizza for kids and parents.  It was a very special evening.  

By loving our neighbor we persevered, by loving our neighbor we will recover.

 

 

 

 

Truly, we are all in this together!

Love My Neighbor 2 Recover Kids Art Contest - The Art Show and Great Developement!

The joyful, beautiful and meaningful art from our contest is up on the wall of our Artward! Kids Studio in the big community room of the "club house" and it looks awesome!

It was actually a difficult work to decide on the award winners with so many fabulous works.  Yet the winners each display a unique and unmistakable talent.  Because of the level of submitted works to our initially announced three awards of $50 Amazon gift cards we decided to add two Honorable Mention awards with a $25 Amazon gift card each. 

If the enthusiastic response to our new program, the quality and amount of submitted works and the feed back from a community we are receiving were not enough we just got another great news.  Upon learning what we are doing our great long-time collaborator on the Love My Neighbor program, the City of Carson came up with the awesome offer.  Council Member Cedric Hicks came up with a great idea for the city to issue the certificates of appreciation for the winners of our contest.  He further generously offered to present them in person on behalf of the City Council.  He was quickly joined by Mayor Pro Tem Jim Dear offering to come as well.  

This is why we, in Artward Initiative, firmly believe in collaborations and partnerships.  Problems like "Scottsdale" cannot be tackled successfully by any one alone.  It can only be done together.  Even though the City of Carson was depleted by the crisis and was not able to support the Love My Neighbor project in "Scottsdale" the way it did for five years with their cultural arts grant program, which was eliminated all together for 2021, they still found a meaningful way to show their support for this long-suffering community.   

Now we can't wait for the ceremony.  It will be meaningful for many reasons as one of the first live events of our cautious re-opening. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love My Neighbor 2 Recover Kids Art Contest in "Scottsdale" - Now Great Art!

 

As the due date for submitting the artwork came we were all very excited to see what our young artists created and were we surprised!  The level of works, the thought and work that were put into them, the stylistic variety and sheer joy are just extraordinary.  We have 31 artworks submitted!

Huge thank you to Michael Yadrick and Roby Leon from the on site management for all their invaluable help, support and collaboration.