Art & Civic Engagement
While serving as creative director at KC Healthy Kids, I worked closely with local, regional, and national partners to increase support for the organization’s policy goals and to encourage community involvement in its programs. Developing partnerships with artists to boost our programs goals was the most rewarding aspect of the work, as I saw how the arts helped kids better understand the strength of their voices and their ability to speak out for healthy communities.
I leveraged my professional network in our local arts community to identify artists and projects that would further the mission of the programs, and managed all the administrative tasks for each project, from requests for proposals, artist contracts and directions, to print signage and digital marketing, video development, public relations and exhibition of the works.
Following are highlights of a few of the partnerships/programs I facilitated.
Heroes
Kids who attended the 2020 Champions for Health Youth Summit put their plans to make a better world onto cotton squares that were later stitched into two quilts by artist NedRa Bonds.
Two-hundred students designed quilt squares based on the stories NedRa told them about other youth activists and the question for the day, "What is your leadership superpower?"
NedRa is an American quilter, activist and retired teacher, born in Kansas City, Kansas and raised in the historic Quindaro neighborhood.
The annual Champions for Health Youth Summit was hosted by KC Healthy Kids from 2013-2020. The program helped students understand how their surroundings impact their health and how to create change through advocacy.
Heroes (We can make a difference), 2020, by NedRa Bonds with Kansas and Missouri Students. Cotton, markers, machine quilted, 42 in x 60 in.
Champions for Happiness/The Jaleo Project
In March 2021, due to COVID restrictions, KC Healthy Kids partnered with a local chapter of Girls on the Run to offer an online workshop in place of the Champions for Health Youth Summit.
Champions for Happiness/The Jaleo Project was a 4-week flamenco dance and visual arts virtual workshop taught by artists Adrianne D. Clayton and Melinda Hedgecorth to help kids explore what happiness means in their communities.
Flamenco is a traditional style of dance in Spain. The audience often participates by yelling words of encouragement, like “Olé!” to the performers. This is called jaleo, and in the workshop kids learn how jaleo is used to encourage flamenco performers, and how to recognize the ways they encourage themselves and each other.
The project culminated on the United Nations' International Day of Happiness, March 20, 2021, with a virtual celebration featuring a video dance performance.
Jaleo fans made by students in the workshop were displayed at Children’s Mercy to share joy with their community. Children at the hospital watched recordings and made fans that were included in the exhibit, which was on display for three months and was seen by employees, families, volunteers and visitors who travel from 46 states and 17 countries. Nearly half of the care Children’s Mercy provides is paid for with Medicaid and other government assistance.
See the Final Dance Performance
The exhibit included mini flamenco lessons, which people could access using QR code in the exhibit.
KSHB covered the project in this report.
KC Voices
KC Voices was a 2019 collaborative effort to involve community leaders of low-income, racially diverse neighborhoods in KCK and KCMO in sharing stories and information about how food policies shape our community, our opportunities and our plates. The collaborative addressed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program, school food and other programs contained in the Child Nutrition Reauthorization and 2018 Farm Bill.
Community members were featured in a series by StoryCorps, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, highlighting the temporary but critical support the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides families during times of need. The recordings are featured in The State of Obesity: Better Policies for the Health of America.
Five artists chosen by the community members were commissioned to create works. The works were celebrated at unveiling events and exhibited at community sites and public offices throughout the year, including the Jackson County Legislature, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, the Office of Congresswoman Sharice Davids and the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center.
Chico Sierra’s piece was featured on Sharice Davids’ official holiday card in 2019.
