Volunteering at the Lutheran Nursing Home on January 4, the Art for Social Change Club helped to teach a painting lesson.
The students worked with the residents on painting flowers with watercolor.
The Lutheran Nursing Home in Telford tries to do a lot with the arts, from music to painting and sketching.
There is an ongoing art group at the nursing home.
“We found that residents, number one, enjoy it, and certainly it’s a great way for them to be introduced to a new hobby,” entertainment coordinator Nicole Brennan said.
Although this is the first time Art for Social Change Club has decided to go to a nursing home to paint with the residents, they’ve decided that they should make this an annual event.
Art for Social Change club advisor Virginia Perry said that she would be happy to do this event in multiple nursing homes.
“They love the interaction with younger people and they want to keep busy,” Perry said.
Art for Social Change club also sells art. The proceeds go to the Laurel House and other local charities.
“We also do our superhero project where we draw our own superheroes and we send those to CHOP, so the little kids can have their own superheroes,” junior Hagar Eldeeb said. Some of the students join this club so that they can do art and see their friends. They use this club as a “safe space” and they help people with their art, sophomore Kelley Zarzycki said.
According to sophomore Meredith Leiss, the club uses “art as a medium to positively change certain things.”
Zarzycki agrees.“It means putting our efforts together to make a different society,” Eldeeb said. “It means letting your imagination run free.”
Even though the whole club could not come to this event, the six students that went from the club seemed to help the residents at the nursing home.
“[The residents] love expressing themselves creatively,” Brennan said.
Although some of the residents at the nursing home have problems with sight, the students from the club were happy to help them draw and paint.
Even though it was a small group, both “the students and the residents had fun,” Perry said. The students learned to work with senior citizens through this experience.
“I really wanted to do something with the community because lately, we’ve just been at school,” president Khoi Moye said.
“We haven’t done much outside of school.”
“[The nursing home event] was a chance to do something.”
Moye wanted to prove to his community that the club was not only doing things for the school but also for the community.
“Young people today aren’t just glued to their phones,” Moye said. “[We] do care about everyone,” Moye said.