January is National Mentoring Month, an opportunity to reflect on how mentoring relationships are critical to everyone’s development, especially those with early life experiences of adversity and trauma.
A volunteer training activity in the Art Heals Arizona organization best illustrates mentoring’s reach. It asks trainees to trace their hands on a sheet of paper and, on each of their five fingers, list the name of someone who has served as a mentor, either formally or informally.
Photographer Lindsay McOein will host the “Lost In Bloom” art show at the BLOK photo studio near 7th and Fillmore Streets on Friday, Sept. 27, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The one-night-only gallery will benefit Art Heals Arizona, which provides art therapy for Valley foster kids and will raise awareness and resources for art programming that helps children overcome abuse and trauma.
“We’re all about expressive arts combined with adult mentorship. So ordinary people doing extraordinary things, building relationships and doing expressive art, exploring a sense of self, communicating that to others. And doing that in meaningful ways that helps build skills, helps build a sense that we can cope with our reality and make bright futures for ourselves,” said Matt Sandavol, Executive Director of Art Heals Arizona.
Art Heals Arizona for Abused Children of Arizona, a leading nonprofit dedicated to transforming children’s trauma to resilience through the arts, has been awarded a $250,000 grant from The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation to expand and enhance their programming throughout the state.