Celebrations

We’ve been celebrating a lot lately at Patchwork. It’s welcome in the midst of our daily work of showers, food orders, cups of coffee, tutoring sessions, leadership training, greeting people, meeting people, and helping where we can.

Recently, we’ve had celebrations in honor of staff members who have moved on to new endeavors and even a celebration of the Hemminger’s new kitchen!

Sunday, September 23 we were one of three congregations or organizations recognized as “A Light of Hope in a Troubled World” at Missionary Day at Cleaves Memorial C.M.E. Church.

Then on Thursday, September 27, we were at the Vanderburgh Community Foundation’s Spirit of Giving Celebration to receive the Celebration of Youth Arts award. It was an honor to be nominated for and to be chosen to receive this award which, as described by the VCF:

“… recognizes service by an individual, corporation or organization which has created, sponsored or led a project that has generated opportunity for youth participation in the arts.  The recipient must have demonstrated exceptional leadership skills in coordinating and motivating multiple stakeholder groups toward a common vision that resulted in developing youth arts in our community.”

At the Celebration, we had a table full of Patchwork folks who represented all 32 years of Patchwork’s children’s programming.

The Spirit of Giving Celebration also highlighted the Alhambra Theater and included drawings of the Alhambra made by our friend Billy Hedel and by Arts & Smarts kids who took a field trip to draw the Alhambra last week. The kids’ drawings are now on display at Patchwork.

The celebrating continued on Thursday afternoon with our annual Back to Patchwork Party that celebrates the new school year and the return of the full range of our after school activities (tutoring and leadership training for kids in grades 5+ had begun on September 4). Tales & Scales came to give us a preview of their new show and to play musical games with us.

All the kids had a great time, but my favorite moment was seeing the pure joy on one boy’s face as he drummed wildly using Tales & Scales’ percussion equipment. He may face significant challenges at home and at school, but for that moment he was so confident and so happy.

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