Children need a place where they can feel safe and need to feel valued in their community.
They need positive role models and opportunities to use their hands to create.
They need confidence in their language and space to tell their stories.
They need time to explore options for what they can become in life.
SOHO is a collaborative partnership between the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, ART 180, and Friends Association for Children in Gilpin Court. SOHO engages a girl in a journey of envisioning, developing, and creating her own space through art-based projects, creative writing, and interaction with inspiring female mentors.
SOHO reaches some of Richmond’s children most in need. Gilpin Court has one of the city’s highest concentrations of poverty and one of the city’s highest crime rates. Sixty-five percent of the neighborhood’s adult population did not finish high school, and less than two percent of the housing units are owner-occupied. Youth served by the Friends Association are at risk for low academic performance, truancy, high school drop-out, teen pregnancy, delinquent behavior, and continued poverty. The complexity of the obstacles they face can obscure their strengths and their potential.
SOHO girls and mentors get together for 22 weeks to explore their creative spirits through engaging art projects, meaningful life-skill lessons, and sharing healthy meals. Dinners are prepared by female chefs who share stories about their own career paths. Life skills and creative conflict resolution ideas are shared through “table talk” in an informal, personal way. Later, artists guide instruction for projects designed to organize and enhance space in the girls’ homes. Projects like hand-sewn pillows, organizational bins, hand-made shades for desk lamps, and pocket curtain panels to hold special belongings are chronicled in a journal that the girls use to collect their ideas and inspirations. By incorporating creative writing exercises, the journal becomes each girl’s story of her journey through SOHO. Each program night, Closing Circle provides a chance for each girl to share what she is grateful for that night.
Mentors and volunteers spend a weekend with each girl, organizing and re-decorating her bedroom in Gilpin Court. Together, they transform her space into a positive, clean, well-lit room with a special place to study, using all the projects they made together. Art-making becomes life changing when each girl has someone special who has made the commitment to be a mentor and friend throughout the program. SOHO mentors are women who come from all walks of life in the Richmond community and who share the encouraging words and patient hands that build stronger, more confident girls.
Help change a girl’s life!
Download your mentor interest form HERE.
Read Richmond Times-Dispatch article about SOHO HERE.
Contact:
Sally Kemp / Betsy Kelly
