Neighbor News
Bankwell Partners with Silvermine Guild to provide Childrens' Art Program at Norwalk Housing Authority
Bankwell gives $2500 grant to Silvermine Art Partners to fund project by Norwalk Housing Authority middle school students
Exhibit Reception at Silvermine Arts Center, for Bankwell-sponsored Art Partners Outreach Education project with Norwalk Housing Authority middle school students. Diane Knetzger, Bankwell’s Director of Marketing appears in the middle with Sophia Gevas, Director of Outreach Education at the Silvermine Arts Center. Poet Laurel Peterson is at far right and Danielle Vinci, Creative Arts Coordinator at the Norwalk Housing Authority Learning Centers, appears at left.
Middle school students from the Norwalk Housing Authority after-school program exhibited their work this January at the Silvermine Arts Center as the culmination of a visual art and writing program that began in November. The project was made possible by Bankwell, which donated $2500 to Art Partners, Silvermine’s Outreach Education department directed by Sophia Gevas.
Norwalk Poet Laureate, Laurel Peterson, and Silvermine Teaching Artist, Wendy MacCordy, worked with the Norwalk Housing Authority students to create poetry, drawings and paintings on the subject of the students’ vision for their future. An exhibition of the work entitled “Future Me” was installed in Silvermine Art Center’s Student Gallery, with a reception on January 10.
Find out what's happening in Norwalkfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“We truly appreciate Bankwell’s support of Art Partners,” said Sophia Gevas. “Their generous donation paved the way for a joyous and educational literacy and studio art experience celebrated in an exhibition at the Silvermine School of Art.”
Since 1992, Silvermine Arts Center's Art Partners Program has been providing free-or-subsidized professional Teaching Artists to design and execute exciting arts classes to under-served students in Stamford and Norwalk public schools. The distinctiveness of Art Partners centers on the quality of the teaching artists and their close collaboration with classroom teachers or program directors to augment student academic achievement.
