Tonight there was a fun painting party benefiting Healing Hearts Child Advocacy Center, the very first child advocacy center in DeSoto County. A child advocacy center helps children who have been abused. From what I understand, a center such as this one will make sure everyone works together in order to better benefit the children. Broken down simply, they advocate for children who have suffered through abuse. The most simple way they will advocate for each child is instead of having to recount their abuse story over and over again to multiple people and reliving through that traumatic event in their life, the child will just have to tell their story once. On their Facebook page they have an adorable diagram of the process that a child who has been abused has to go through before the center and after. While you may not see child abuse in your day to day life, it is a very real problem throughout the world, no county in America is exempt from it. If you want to know more or volunteer you should check out their website and their Facebook page.
The painting party tonight allowed us to paint pictures at Pleasant Hill Art Center to decorate the advocacy center. How awesome is that? For those of you unfamiliar with Pleasant Hill Art Center, the lovely women who run it help you create a work of art (that sometimes you wouldn't be able to create otherwise). Their theory is everyone is an artist (and unlike my drawing professor who proclaimed he could teach anyone to draw, their theory is way more accurate). If you can't quite get your picture there on your own, they are there with just a few suggestions (and maybe a little stroke or two) that will get your painting to the next level of perfection. My mom has been to at least 3 parties there in the past few months (my dad even attend 2 of those and enjoyed himself!). It's one of those things where you have fun doing it and you're even proud of your work in the end. I felt like I was taking a lot more pictures than I actually took (like always). But I had a blast and while I might would have wandered around a little more taking pictures, I'm very thankful for the reason I stayed put.
Title: "Paint the Pictures" by of Verona
Labels: Art, Community, Community Service, Music, Painting
