Many people responded kindly to our last two requests for financial support.  Many checks for $25 or less, plus a few bigger ones, added up to make these trips and our work possible. A big check in the amount of $20,000 (by an anonymous donor) came just before our summer trip.

 

Thanks to the Packer Collegiate Institute students who gave up their spring break to work with our students at Sivuyiseni: Rachel Alter, Hudson Cavanagh, Haru Coryne, Philip Hughes, Henry Kaye, Louis Minsky, Ali Salas, Marcel Salas, George Steele, and Suzy Storr.  

 

The incredible Packer teachers who came along were: Katie Gibson, Deb McDermott, Pippa Mayell, and Andrea Snyder.  The trip went so smoothly due to the hard work of these students and chaperones.  I hope they will all consider coming again.

 

The Packer PA also held an art supply and sweater drive and we brought many gently used clothing from the school as well.

 

Two very generous donations came from Packer parents, Barbara Miral-Gatenio, and Claire Silberman.  

 

I was in South Africa for 6 weeks this summer, and nearly 20 others joined me for various lengths of time within July and August.  They were: Susan Feibelman, Eva Turner, Elana Fishbein, Grace Sur, Katie Fogarty, Kazia Musial-Aderer, Martha Haakmat, Kaila Warner-Haakmat, Georgia Warner-Haakmat, Liani Homer, Janet Kyle, Hyun Chung, Rebecca Boucher, Quin Boucher, Carol Walker, Shirley , Lauren Glant, Michael Gillespie, Willie Gillespie, and Cullen Gillespie.  

 

It was among our best trips yet and it was due to the hard work and great ideas of these individuals.

 

Thanks to the ArtWorks for Youth board members.

 

Thanks to Elizabeth Olofson and the Howard Gilman Foundation, for two gifts totaling $8,000 in the past year.

 

Thanks to Liz Ann Doherty, who hosted a fundraiser in her home and to the Packer students who helped organize it (named at left).

Thanks to Pearl Fabric for donating beautiful cotton fabric for our sewing and quilting classes.

 

Thanks to Lauren Glant and Michael Gillespie who have contributed so much to ArtWorks for Youth (volunteering, hosts of an upcoming fundraiser, helping set up a possible pro-bono representation relationship, to name a few).

 

Thanks to Janet Kyle who made a nice donation after her trip to South Africa.

 

John Elwell is the founder of Replications, Inc., an organ-ization that identifies effective public schools and replicates them.  He is responsible for many incredible schools in NYC.  (Google him if you get a second.) Replications was our program’s fiscal conduit when we first began and didn’t yet have our own nonprofit status.  Thanks John!

  

Betta Ehrenfeld gave us over half of our budget in our first two years of existence.  There is no way we would have gotten this far without her.

 

Thanks so so much to Yoliswa Poyo, who has hosted me each of the five times I have traveled to Port Elizabeth.  She does so much more than provide room and board.  She sees that the program runs smoothly and knows just about everyone in Port Elizabeth.  

 

Asanda Laxa is our longest running teacher in South Africa.  Aside from teaching painting and drawing, Asanda does so much running around for me in South Africa.

 

Thanks to Tania, Herman, and Neil Terblanche, the family that owns the Hippo Backpackers, where we stay while in Port Elizabeth.

 

Thanks most of all to our many students.  We’ll see  you soon.

 

 

Come again,

John V. Lombardo