Juvenile Offenders Create Art Car For Charity
ArtCarTraz To Ride in 17th Annual Art Car Parade in Houston, TX on May 14
New York, NY (April 5, 2005) - In an unprecedented initiative, juvenile offenders across 3 states will work together to design and create a traveling work of art for charity. ArtCarTraz is an art car piece that will kick-off at the Alabama Department of Youth Services facility at Mt. Meigs outside of Montgomery, AL on May 2 and travel to the Oakley Training School outside of Jackson, MS, and the Bridge City Correctional Center for Youth outside of New Orleans, LA. ArtCarTraz will be a mobile work-in-progress mural that will be created, using paint, one section at a time by the juvenile offenders housed at these correctional facilities. Once completed, ArtCarTraz will travel to Houston, TX to ride in the 17th Annual "Everyones Art Car Parade," produced by the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art on May 14. After participating in the parade, the car will be auctioned off and the money will be donated to Skip, Inc., a Montgomery, AL based organization that mentors children of incarcerated parents.
While traveling, ArtCarTraz hopes to raise awareness about the important benefits of institutional arts programming. "Arts-based programs for juvenile offenders are highly empowering and transforming for the participants," said Grady Hillman, Founder of the Southwest Correctional Arts Network. "These programs reduce the risk factors that cause youth to be susceptible to crime by increasing communication skills, conflict management techniques, and positive peer associations. Every evaluation study in this area confirms that arts programs are as effective in deterring juvenile crime as any other juvenile justice treatment methodology."
In addition to being a unique art project, by designing and painting the car in order to raise money to benefit a separate population of underserved and at-risk youth, ArtCarTraz will enable these juvenile offenders to engage in the process of restorative justice by using their efforts and talents to give back to the community.
ArtCarTraz will operate under an umbrella agreement with the Southwest Correctional Arts Network (SCAN). The project has been facilitated by the Alabama Writer's Forum (Montgomery, AL), Communities In Schools Greenwood Leflore Inc. (MS), and the Louisiana Office of Youth Development. ArtCarTraz has the support of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art in Houston, TX.
ArtCarTraz will be on the road as follows:
a.. 5/2 & 3 - Mt. Meigs, AL
b.. 5/5 & 6 - Oakley Training School (Raymond, MS)
c.. 5/9 & 10 - Bridge City, LA
d.. 5/14 - Art Car parade in Houston, TX
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For more information about ArtCarTraz, please contact:
Anne Kristoff or Ashleye White
akristoff@nyc.rr.com ashleyewhite@hotmail.com
(917)885-7602
About the Southwest Correctional Arts Network (SCAN)
The Southwest Correctional Arts Network (SCAN) is a nonprofit corporation established in 1991 to foster the growth and appreciation of arts programs for at-risk youth, and juvenile and adult offenders in institutions and communities.
Contact: Grady Hillman gradyh@prodigy.net (512)467-8382
About the Alabama Writer's Forum
The Alabama Writer's Forum promotes and facilitates the practice of literary arts through its services to writers and the general public. With individual and corporate associates statewide, the Forum represents diverse voices of today's writing talent. Partnering with Alabama's juvenile justice community, the Forum manages "Writing Our Stories: An Anti-Violence Creative Writing Program" on three Department of Youth Services campuses. The Forum is a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
Contact: Jeanie.Thompson@arts.alabama.gov (334)242-4076 x236
About the Alabama Department of Youth Services
The mission of the Alabama Department of Youth Services is to enhance public safety by holding juvenile offenders accountable through the use of institutional, educational, and community services that balance the rights and needs of victims, communities, courts, and offenders. The Department of Youth Services operates under, and is governed by Section 44-1-1 et. Seq. Code of Alabama 1975, as amended. All DYS agencies are governed by the Director and by the Youth Services Board as stipulated by State law.
Contact: DYS - Tracy.Smitherman@dys.alabama.gov (334)215-3856
Arts program - Rush.McQueen@dys.alabama.gov (334)215-6120
About Communities in Schools of Greenwood Leflore, Inc.
Communities in Schools provides rigorous, challenging, skills-based arts instruction in a variety of disciplines taught by master artists. CIS focuses services on alternative schools, adolescent offender programs and training schools throughout Mississippi. Components of CIS' program are: prevention (adequate after-school programs to engage youth), intervention (arts programming in alternative schools, adolescent offender programs, other court mandated settings) and after-care (after-school arts programs).
Contact: Linda Whittington celia@netdoor.com (662)455-2864
About the Mississippi Department of Human Services/Division of Youth Services
The Division of Youth Services (DYS) provides institutional care to delinquent juveniles committed to MDHS/DYS custody. The mission of the DYS is to provide leadership for change for youth, family units and communities in Mississippi. It is operated by creating legitimate, alternative pathways to adulthood through equal access to services that are least intrusive, culturally sensitive, and consistent with the highest professional standards.
Contact: Kathy H. Pittman, Director kpittman@mdhs.state.ms.us (601)359-4972
About the Louisiana Office of Youth Development
The Office of Youth Development is a quality system of care assisting youth, along with their families, in redirecting their lives toward responsible citizenship. The Office of Youth Development provides at-risk and delinquent youth the opportunity to become responsible and productive citizens using partnerships with families, communities, and other entities with emphasis on the safety of youth and the public.
Contact: Sgt. Michael Gaines MGAINES@oyd01.corrections.state.la.us (504)436-4253
About Saving Kids of Incarcerated Parents (SKIP, Inc.)
The purpose of the SKIP program is to help children of incarcerated parents and their families better cope with separation due to incarceration, to maintain family ties, and to break the cycle of incarceration by informing the community at large of the underlying problems of children with incarcerated parents and the necessity of community support, and by increasing family awareness of community services and support that are available to them.
Contact: Gloria Jean Canty skipinc@mindspring.com (334)284-8103
