Art to Heart Concept
When the National Lottery was first launched, I held a dinner party with some couples. We were all discussing what we would spend it on if we won. Needless to say there were a couple of rows!! At the same time my Nana, Annie Holt; aged 99; was in a Residential nursing home and I used to visit her regularly with my two daughters Georgia and Abby.
The staff at the home were really friendly and hardworking but there was little time and resources to stimulate the residents. This led me to think and realise that whenever I visited homes residents are mainly sitting around watching tv for most of the day. I decided that should I ever win the Lottery I would buy a van, call it Art To Heart and go round old folks homes, hospitals etc. working with the residents and patients using different materials to stimulate them and have some fun.
Through my job as Head of Art at Elton High School, the school decided to go for specialist status in the visual arts. We had to plan a third of the money to go towards Community work. I saw that this could be a wonderful opportunity to launch ‘Art To Heart’.
Our pupils designed the logo (winner Jenny Jones) and we registered it as a trademark. We are now a registered charity and have had t-shirts, baseball caps and aprons printed to promote the logo.
We have set up contacts and have successfully started ‘Art To Heart’ workshops in old folks home and hospitals with pupils from school helping out within the workshops.
It is our intention to raise as much money as we can to employ more ‘Art To Heartists’ to work in as many areas as possible across the U.K. Please have a look at further pages for more details and information about this scheme.
Gina Holt- Specialist Schools Co-ordinator.