Press Release
For the second year, Art staff and students at Fairhaven High School have joined the Memory Project, a charitable nonprofit organization that invites art teachers and their students to create and donate portraits to youth around the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as neglect, abuse, loss of parents, violence, and extreme poverty.
In this photo from last year, Erik Normand holds up a portrait he created from a photo for a youngster in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of the Memory Project, which creates portraits for youth in challenging situations around the world. Submited photo.
Given that youth in such situations usually have few personal keepsakes, the purpose of the portraits is to provide them with meaningful mementos of their youth. The project also allows art students to practice kindness and global awareness while enhancing their portraiture skills.
Students at Fairhaven High School are participating as part of a National Art Honor Society project bringing awareness to global citizenship through social activism. To do this, the students receive photos of children who are waiting for portraits, and then work in a 2D media of their choice to create the portraits.
Samantha Fernandes and Brenna Becotte show their portraits during last year’s project. Submitted photo.
Once finished, the Memory Project delivers the portraits to the children. In total, the 67 artist participants and an additional 13 sponsors will make portraits for 67 children in Puerto Rico, a substantial amount more then last year when we created 26 portraits with 16 sponsors for children in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Each portrait requires $15, many students were sponsored by staff members and teachers here at Fairhaven High School. We raised over $1,000.00 this year! Profits go to creating educational and recreational opportunities for the children.
Olivia Nunes works on her potrait from last year. Submitted photo.
The Memory Project is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin. Since the project began in 2004, more than 100,000 American art students have created portraits for children in 44 countries.
To learn more visit https:// memoryproject.org/
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