Clinton Glogal Initiative University 2010
Victor El-Saieh, Board Member of ACFFC, has been accepted as a participant and with media profile designation for the upcoming event April 2010. The focus is on Haiti and ACFFC has a proposal submitted to add to self sufficiency of our children and their families via green practices/gardening/small livestock raising. Bravo! http://cgiu.clintonglobalinitiative.org/Page.aspx?pid=1853

Also, please see our Cause on Facebook and Albums with photos of the children and their art.
No need to register with Facebook to view/join the ACFFC Cause.
http://www.causes.com/acffc_haiti

Where to Eat, Play, and Stay
by Amy Wilentz | Published September 2009

http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/501455?pageNumber=3

For beaches and old Caribbean flavor, go to Jacmel. The lively farmers' market is definitely worth visiting. Seafood shacks come and go along the beach at Ti Mouillage. Bassin-Bleu is a series of blue ponds, the final one ending in a waterfall. Getting to the basin is a trek over a riverbed, up a steep "road," and through a clumpy forest, plus (since last year's hurricanes) a final ascent with a rope—so bring your four-by-four and a guide. Jacmel's nonprofit Art Creation Foundation for Children has a small gallery of children's artwork (2 rue Dupré Turnier; 3874-7474). The Foundation Art Center of Jacmel is a waterfront warehouse with artists' studios, frequently changing exhibits, a small gift shop, and a café, plus weekly events (5-7 rue St- Anne; 3669-1911).

Thanks to Laurie Beasley of Ridge Art, I was interviewed by Jerome McDonnell of Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ 91.5, on a program called Worldview which will be aired Thursday, August 19 at Noon and 9 PM (Chicago clock) ... you can listen 'live' via the following link and it will also be accessible via archive and podcast. The amazing thing is that this is one of those programs that is syndicated and may be heard on other NPR stations as well, in addition to online.

KEISER UNIVERSITY, WEST PALM BEACH CAMPUS, SERVICE LEARNING PROGRAM (ENC2102) HAS AGAIN RAISED OVER $1200 DURING THIS MOST RECENT SEMESTER.
In total, since the program began in November 2008, they have raised over $6,000 for ACFFC - with Dr. Connie Duke leading the initiative coupled with the support of Administration. This class held a write-a-thon ... we are so grateful.

KATIE BARR OF CARIBBEAN FINE ART SHOWED ACFFC MASKS AT A RECENT
EVENT IN DELRAY BEACH FL.
Boca Raton, Fl (July 2009) Katie Barr will be bringing ACFFC masks to show at an upcoming Delray Beach event and children will be painting their own masks at the event as well. In addition, she hopes soon to feature ACFFC art in her gallery and on her website. All because we are all connected via Gallery Issa in PAP, Dr Bartoli, Dr Castor (who ferries art here for us), Katie became aware of ACFFC and has stepped up!

KEISER UNIVERSITY, WEST PALM BEACH CAMPUS, SERVICE LEARNING PROGRAM (ENC2102) HAS RAISED OVER $1200 DURING THIS MOST RECENT SEMESTER.
In total, since the program began in November 2008, they have raised over $5,000 for ACFFC - with Dr. Connie Duke leading the initiative coupled with the support of Administration and the hard work of a total of 42 students in this class over the semesters to date. As well, they have created and printed ACFFC brochures, collected digital cameras and cellphones for the children and the staff in Jacmel, and have also become ACFFC emissaries. What fun, this past semester, Vladimir Simeon, our ACFFC Vice President and founding Board member was actually a student in this class - and he is attending Keiser University having met Dr. Duke and learning about the Institution via this program - he will soon receive his Bachelor's degree - full circile! This is ongoing and speaks so very highly for the University and its role and connectedness to the community, not just the community around the corner, but also in a place that needs their help. Many corporate entities will only help if there is a sponsorship opportunity or potential for other publicity or revenue stream for them as quid pro quo. Not Keiser! And ACFFC is so very grateful.

Left - The July ENC2102 class with Judy Hoffman of ACFFC and Dr. Connie Duke.
Right - Judy Hoffman awarding a beautiful papier mache piece to a class member as thanks! The piece was made by Josue in Jacmel!

Ridge Art Unveils Show of Traditional Haitian Art
from Art Creation Foundation for Children

OAK PARK (April 2, 2009) – Ridge Art gallery owner, Laurie Beasley, unveils a show of traditional Haitian papier mache carnival masks, bowls and ornaments made by children in Jacmel, Haiti. The artists are a part of the Art Creation Foundation for Children, a non-profit arts organization created for the education and personal growth of children in need in Jacmel, Haiti.

The show will open during the What’s Blooming on Harrison arts festival and eco-exhibition sponsored by the Oak Park Arts District on Friday, May 15, from 6-10 pm, and Saturday, May 16, from 12 - 8 pm. In keeping with the event’s theme, “It’s easy being Green,” the boldly colorful masks featured in the show are made from recycled cement bags that have been fashioned into fiercely striking animal faces.

ACFC founder and president, Judy Hoffman, says, “It’s a privilege to help bring hope to the 60 children served by ACFC. They learn traditional Haitian arts and crafts, attend school, and receive food, health care, and emotional support. We are grateful that Laurie is featuring the children’s artwork at Ridge Art gallery.”

Just under two hours by air from Miami, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere with nearly 80% of the population living in poverty, and a significant portion of the population facing malnutrition and illiteracy. Art in Haiti is a very important foundation that provides a means of survival to a large number of people. A single artist can help create a trickle-down effect, impacting the broader community by having the money to buy food from a local vendor, fabric to be used as canvas from a neighbor, etc.

“Increasingly folk art is being used to facilitate social change. The local culture is preserved, income is assured, and the art is treasured by collectors globally,” said Ridge Art gallery owner, Laurie Beasley. “These handcrafted pieces from the children are more than just beautiful art; they are imbued with their stories of hope.”

Ridge Art will continue to exhibit the ACFC children’s work through Summer, 2009.

About Laurie Beasley & Ridge Art (www.ridgeart.com)
Laurie Beasley, proprietor of Ridge Art, has been a collector of folk art and antiques for over 30 years. In 1998, she left the world of advertising after 25 years to open her own gallery. The result was Ridge Art, a gallery specializing in emerging, visionary and self-taught artists from around the world, with a special emphasis on West Africa and Haiti. The gallery is located at 21 Harrison Street, in the Oak Park Arts District. Ms. Beasley has curated shows and spoken on Haitian art around the United States and regularly travels to the Caribbean and Africa to search for new works to bring back to her growing clientele.

Ridge Art - Hours & Location:
Thursdays and Fridays from 12:00 p.m. – 6 p.m., Saturdays from 12:00 noon – 5:00 p.m. and Sundays from 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Viewings are also available by appointment. The gallery stays open until 9 p.m. the third Friday of every month while it participates in Third Friday Art Walks in the Oak Park Arts District. Many of the pieces currently in the collections can also be viewed on the Ridge Art website. The gallery is located one block north of the Austin I-290 exit (Austin & Harrison) and is accessible by public transportation from the Austin exit of the Forest Park blue line.

Was amazing and ACFFC was well represented. The 2010 conference will be November and in Haiti. Join and visit ACFFC.

To register, contact Kent Shankle, kent.shankle@waterloo-ia.org

To join the Haitian Art Society or to renew your membership, click on the link for "About HAS Membership" on the left or click the page link here http://www.haitianartsociety.org/about.html

________________________________________________________________________

WALTER E. WASHINGTON CONVENTION CENTER - DC - SEPTEMBER 11-13, 2009

Gala and Benefit Night

This year, ICAFair takes an unprecedented approach to a fair's benefit by introducing A Night of Art and Giving to Help Haiti. This event will be held on Friday, September 11, 2009, from 8-11pm, as part of its Gala and Benefit Night.

Attendees will have the opportunity to support worthy causes that help change the lives of Haitians. Collectors and art professionals can mingle, meet with gallery directors and artists, enjoy a night of food, drinks and entertainment, and acquire new works for their collections.

ICAFair's Gala and Benefit Night will host this special and unique fundraising event for select non-profit organizations whose work support Haiti, considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The selected non-profit organizations will be the beneficiaries of this event. After paying the event's $35 ticket price, attendees will be able to donate any amount above that to the organizations of their choice. Throughout the three-day fair, ICAFair will contribute $3 of each attendee ticket price to the organization, or organizations, the attendee wishes to give to. A silent art auction of works donated by galleries or artists will also be held with full proceeds going to any of the non-profit organizations that will be there.

Special non-profit booths will be on display for visitors to learn more about each organization, and learn of their success stories. ICAFair's website will also have information on the organizations participating in the fundraising. In addition, ICAFair will have a Non-Profit Booth Show for organizations to display photographs illustrating their activities in Haiti.

This event is a great way to see beautiful art and to network. It is a wonderful opportunity to meet the people who are making a difference in people's lives. Join us in their journey to change Haiti, a country rich in tradition, history, and art.

Make A Difference!

ACFFC IS A BENEFICIARY ORGANIZATION!

________________________________________________________________________

New Service Learning Program under the aegis of the amazing Dr. Connie Duke. This semester, students created a series of cookbooks and sold them to raise funds for ACFFC. In addition, Dr. Duke has designed a tote bag that our children in Haiti can make in canvas and paint with beautiful designs so supplies were purchased as well, along with detailed instructions written and translated into kreyol. Mesi to all. You are the best!

________________________________________________________________________

From Nadine LaFond and Art Lives Studio ... and also her band Swampadelica:

haïti relief benefit

Grassroots arts events organized by fellow artists to help send vital resources to Haïti and assist communities hit hard by both environmental and economic disasters. Volunteers are welcomed to help organize these wonderful events.

**** How to Help: Collecting Art = Resources to Haïti
You are welcomed to purchase artwork from the following collection and at the listed events below in support of our Haïti Relief Benefit. 100% proceeds go to provide vital resources for communities in Haïti. We've got more artists joining the cause so stay tuned for more original works of art for your collecting pleasure. Thanks in advance for your generous support!

http://www.artlives.net/haitirelief.html

CURRENT COLLECTION

5 works of art available
100% proceeds to ACFFC (Art Creation Foundation for Children)

Grassroots arts events organized by fellow artists to help send vital resources to Haïti and assist communities hit hard by both

UPDATE - AFTER SIX MONTHS, WE HAVE SUCCEEDED IN SHIPPING OUT 80+ BOXES THANKS TO TURGO BASTIEN AND GERMAIN MOVING & CARGO SHIPPING OF DELRAY BEACH, FL FOR DELIVERY TO ACFFC IN JACMEL IN APRIL. BRAVO TO ALL!!!

Keiser University, West Palm Beach campus, launches ongoing service learning program in support of Art Creation Foundation For Children.

Tropical Storm Hanna and Hurricane Gustav have flooded villages and destroyed homes, leaving thousands without food and water in a country already desperate for both.

"People are totally without supplies. Everything has been ruined. You really want to cry for not being able to help," said Ann Briere of Food for the Poor.
The South Florida organization is a major food source for the people of Haiti, where more than 80 percent live on a dollar a day. It was forced to deliver food to flood victims by helicopter this week because roads were flooded.
Hanna's floodwaters inundated more than half the homes in the city of Gonaives, and bodies surfacing as floodwaters recede have raised the death toll to 137. But the number is probably even higher. "It takes very little amount of water to create a disaster in Haiti."
Most of the land in Haiti is without vegetation because trees are used for fuel, allowing water and mud to gush down mountains without warning.
Judy Hoffman of Lake Worth, who founded Art Creation Foundation For Children to educate poor children in Haiti, is now trying to feed the families of the children her foundation helps. Hoffman's workers are feeding 58 families in Jacmel, all victims of floods, and they hope to feed more.
One man, Hoffman said, tried to cross a stream because the roads were washed out and he was swept away. The man had a wife and five children.

How to Help:
Art Creation Foundation For Children
www.artforhaitianchildren.org
Founder Judy Hoffman can be reached at 561-965-8300 x 304
Items can be dropped off at 4020 South 57th Ave, Suite 101, Lake Worth

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Charity performance set for Friday, Feb. 27 at JDHS auditorium

To raise money for a youth charity in Haiti, Juneau-Douglas High School actors and backstage staff will put on an extra performance of an upcoming musical.

The play, "Once On This Island," is a modern fairy tale set on an unnamed island in the Antilles that's clearly modeled on Haiti, director Ryan Conarro said.

In the play, a peasant girl nicknamed Ti Moune, or Little Orphan, is saved in a storm by a couple who will become her adoptive parents.

As a teenager, she wants to know her purpose in life. Eventually, she rescues a city man, Daniel, whose car crashes near her village. It turns out that the gods of death and love are testing her. She promises herself to the god of death to save Daniel.

A hard-luck story, but not really worse than the daily lives of many children in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

JDHS drama teacher Bethany Bereman and Conarro decided to contact a charity that serves Haiti and ask the students to put on an extra performance, the proceeds of which would go to the organization.

"Everybody was just totally for it," student Kael Wanamaker said. "It really energizes you to go out and perform. You have a reason for it."

Searching the Internet, Bereman and Conarro learned about the Art Creation Foundation for Children. It's a grassroots nonprofit that teaches children art, feeds them, and pays for school fees, uniforms and materials.

Only four out of 10 Haitian children go to school, said co-founder Judy Hoffman, who runs a marketing research company in Lake Worth, Fla.

The center, formed in mid-2003 and located in Jacmel, operates on less than $20,000 a year, she said. It serves about 30 children ages 6 to 12.

Besides learning art in the mornings, which could come in handy as an occupational skill as adults, the children are fed.

"They are fed the hugest plates of food you can imagine a little kid could consume," Hoffman said. "Then they change into their school uniforms and the go to school in the afternoon."

Hoffman said she was "astounded and thrilled" to hear from the Juneau-Douglas High School drama department. She sent several pieces of the children's art as a gift. Conarro will incorporate the pieces into the stage set.

Wanamaker and student Zak Kirkpatrick interviewed Hoffman for the play's program.

"She talked about how most people see the art (in Haiti) and they view it as a beautiful island paradise," Kirkpatrick said. But the truth is it's dirty and poor, he said.

"She said the kids get everything totally free," Wanamaker said. "They'll come in an make art with the professional artists and get a free meal at the same time."

The charity performance will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27. Tickets from Hearthside Books are $5 for children up to grade eight; $8 for JDHS and university students and seniors; and $10 for others. There is a $30 family price. Tickets are $2 more at the door.

The JDHS auditorium seats about 1,000. A full house could significantly add to the center's funds.

People who don't attend the show but want to donate can send checks to Art Creation Foundation for Children, 108 Westwood Court, Atlantis, FL 33462.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Lannis Waters/The Palm Beach Post

Judy Hoffman, a Lake Worth businesswoman and collector of Haitian art, began working with fellow collectors and artists to start an art program for street children after her first visit to Haiti in 2003.

Haiti's starving artists
By Kathleen Chapman, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 28, 2004

As armed rebels swarmed Haiti's countryside to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last month, 20 street children tucked away in a small town were putting on their first art exhibition.

Friends and neighbors came to a quiet art studio 50 miles south of Port-au-Prince to ooh and aah over the papier-maché masks the children made to celebrate Mardi Gras. Even in the middle of a violent rebellion, the children beamed like any school kids showing off their work.

"They were so happy to say, 'Look, I made this mask,' " said their teacher, Vladimir Simeon.

Most of the children have never been to school -- their parents are dead or cannot afford to pay the tuition. Simeon found them, some as young as 6, begging in the streets or washing cars for change.

Simeon is able to teach them painting and sculpture because of the work of a Lake Worth businesswoman and her friends and associates around the United States.

Judy Hoffman, the president of Profile Marketing Research, got involved with the project by chance. She had collected Haitian art for several years, decorating her home and office with sequined flags and brilliant paintings, but had never visited the island.

When she made her first trip in 2003 she was stunned that such vibrant paintings could come from such a barren place. Trash was piled in mud alleyways, and the trees were stripped to make charcoal. Children begged for scraps of chicken visitors left on the bones.

"I don't think a person can walk away from there and not feel that they have to do something," Hoffman said. "How could you?"

So she began working with fellow collectors and artists to start an art program for street children in the town of Jacmel, on the southern coast of Haiti. Hoffman and the program's founder, Sandra Renteria of Colorado, put up $500 each and sent letters to friends and family for money. Acquaintances led them to Simeon to teach the children.

Though the Haitian constitution promises free public education, no government has ever provided it. School fees of $6 to $10 a month, in addition to the costs for supplies and uniforms, are out of reach for many in a country where the per capita income is between $1 and $2 a day.

And so beginning in the fall, Simeon approached street children between the ages of 6 and 11 in alleyways and slums. Some are orphans. Others are homeless. Some have relatives who cannot afford to feed them.

Simeon asked the children if they ate every day. If they said no, he asked them if they would like to eat lunch at the studio and learn to draw.

His group grew to about 20. Almost every day, they come to the studio in Jacmel where they draw, paint and make masks from clay and papier-maché -- and eat.

Hoffman smiles at the pictures that come back from Jacmel, showing huge piles of beans and rice heaped in front of the small children.

The children's first drawings are simple, more middle school than great masters. For now, the classes give the children something to look forward to -- and a regular meal.

But the art instruction serves a much more serious purpose, Hoffman said. More than half of Haiti's population is unemployed, and people earn money for food by selling charcoal or washing cars. Haiti's artists make up a strong middle class that can afford regular meals for their families.

In Port-au-Prince, art dealers sell paintings from clotheslines. The street artists, who can't afford canvas, paint on rice bags or old clothes, many sent to them from garage sales by relatives in South Florida. Those with better supplies, who can find a market for paintings in the U.S. and elsewhere, can make $5,000 a year, Simeon said.

The road between Port-au-Prince and Jacmel is bad, and the trip takes several hours. So far, isolation has protected the town from violence during the uprising. Pictures from the children's first exhibition show one white visitor, dressed like a tourist. Hoffman said that a few visitors do make their way to Jacmel, to buy art and see the town's crumbling colonial buildings. If the children succeed, they might find international buyers, she said.

Hoffman has help from her accountant, whose efforts earned the Art Creation Foundation for Children federal status as a nonprofit organization. Its budget is about $17,000 a year.

By the time school starts again in the fall, Hoffman wants to pay for the children to be in class, not just the art program. The project, she said, has made her an outspoken advocate and shameless fund-raiser.

"All of a sudden, I'm being very bold, because we have these children to feed," she said.

Hoffman said she worries about future upheaval in the country but will continue to push for help for the children.

Where to Eat, Play, and Stay by Amy Wilentz | Published September 2009

From Nadine LaFond and Art Lives Studio ... and also her band Swampadelica:

haïti relief benefit

CURRENT COLLECTION

Charity performance set for Friday, Feb. 27 at JDHS auditorium

Where to Eat, Play, and Stay
by Amy Wilentz | Published September 2009