Bloomingdale Art Club Completes Memory Project

A group of students at Bloomingdale High School is bringing smiles to orphans in third-world countries with their artwork.

For the third year, members of the Bloomingdale Art Club initiated the Memory Project in which they receive photographs of impoverished children age 5 to 13 and turn them into works of art.

Seven Bloomingdale students took part in the Memory Project, a national initiative based in Middleton, Wis. Each student donated $15 toward photography and postage to mail the photographs of the children. Then, in January, the students received their photographs of orphaned children they used to create a portrait of the child. They will be sending the finished portraits to the children to keep.

The art students worked on the portraits on their own time and chose their own medium for the project. The Bloomingdale students used watercolors, tempera paint and acrylics to create the children's portraits.

For student Alexis Vasquez, who has taken part in the Memory Project all three years, the experience has proven rewarding.

"It's a way to show these children you care," she said. "After we send the portraits to the children, we get a picture back showing the child holding his portrait. It's so great to see the smiles on their faces."

For more information about the Memory Project, visit http://www.memoryproject.org/.