El Paso Creative Kids

Friday November 22nd First Lady Michelle Obama honored 12 different after school programs with the 2013 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. The award recognizes exemplary after-school and out-of-school time programs from across the country. It is the highest national honor awarded to such programs. The programs were recognized for using engagement in the arts and the humanities to increase academic achievement, graduation rates, and college enrollment, as well as improve literacy and language abilities, communication and performance skills, and cultural awareness.

The ceremony also included a speech by 12-year-old Danashiya Pritchard, a participant in Project AIM in El Paso, Texas. Project AIM reaches over 1,000 children battling cancer in two area hospitals, offering art-mediated therapy in painting on canvas, printmaking, and graphic arts, among other art forms. Over Project AIM’s fourteen-year history, more than 250 pieces of the patients’ artwork have been showcased in more than six venues in the El Paso area. Sierra Providence had a viewing party that included board members, Creative Kids Alumni, instructors and members of the media.