A Great Reminder

As we continue to spread the word about Artists For Hope, here's an adorable reminder of WHY we are doing this and how your donations can help!

The Rescue Center takes in children that are severely malnourished and provides them with nutritious food and health care in hopes that they can gain weight and go home to their families. Sometimes they have starved for too long and their little bodies just can't recover...but very often they can gain strength and nourishment through healthy food and intervention.

This adorable little sweetie is Chrismene.

She was 13 months old when she came to the clinic and she weighed 13 pounds.
I have a 9 month old that weighs almost 20 pounds, so it was hard to imagine how tiny this little one must be!

Here she is going home 6 months later at 17 pounds.
Look at her cheeks and that smile! She looks so healthy and happy!

She was SO happy to see her Mama when she was able to go home.
She kept giving her kisses. Too cute!
This picture can't help but make you smile. :)

These transformations are what we want to support. A family who doesn't have the money or resources to provide food for their children and can't see any hope, suddenly sees that someone is there to help them. This sweet little girl might not have survived if it wasn't for the care, love, and nutritious food provided to her by the RHRC. Your donations and purchases will help these kids have hope and survive! Thank you!

What if I'm Not A Professional Artist?

I have had several people ask me the questions "What if I'm not a professional artist, but I still love to create things and want to donate to Artists For Hope?" My answer is DONATE! Yes! Please!!! :)

Our main goal with Artists For Hope is to help the children in Haiti. There are many talented and creative people in the world that love to create things just for enjoyment and we would love to share your creativity with the world. I feel that I fall into this same category. I am a professional photographer, but I have always loved being creative and I love to draw, make jewelry, and I LOVE doing Mosaics. I don't sell my work, but I love trying new things and I often have WAY more than I know what to do with. So I end up giving my stuff away or sharing it with my friends or kids. That was part of the inspiration for this idea that turned into Artists For Hope. I think every artist has pieces they could donate or has an idea that they might want to create just for Artists For Hope.

We do want this to be a place that Professional Artists can showcase their work and let the world know about their talents through the piece(s) they have donated. I love learning about new artists and I'm excited to be able to share them with so many other art lovers.

So....we welcome ALL your creative ideas out there. Whether you paint, sew, knit, crochet, mold, build, or glue something that you would like to donate to help the children in Haiti...we would be very grateful. If you want us to share a little something about you and what you have created, that would be fine, but if you don't, we will just add your creations to our Etsy Site (or hopefully our soon-to-be ebay site) and you will have the satisfaction of knowing that when your artwork sells, it's helping to feed a child. Pretty awesome!

Patience

I'm a patient person. With kids, people, traffic jams...I'm patient. I've been having patience problems with wanting things to fall into place QUICKLY with this adventure. I want things to go quickly because I desperately want to help the children in Haiti (isn't the picture of some of the babies at the RHRC about the cutest thing you've ever seen!?!), as I know SO many of you do also. Things don't always happen as fast as we would like them too....but I wanted to let everyone know that we are busy working on finding donations to help us get everything set up in becoming an official Non-Profit and then we want to start spreading Artists For Hope around the world! We've been working with some great people who have awesome ideas to move things forward, so PLEASE let us know if you are an Artist and would be willing to donate something to help the children at the Rescue Center.
I will be out of town until Feb. 15th, but when I return we are going to start featuring new artists on our blog. If you are interested, please email me at artistsforhope@gmail.com and we would LOVE to let the world know about you and your talents! Thanks everyone!

New Portrait on Etsy- Iseline

The adorable little girl in this portrait is Iseline.
Alexis captured her sweet little face so well!

Iseline was sent to the Rescue Center by a volunteer doctor in April. She had kwashiorko and was sick. It took her several months to recover.

Here she is going home with a weight gain of 6 pounds. Her mother is 6 months pregnant with another child. But was so happy to be able to take her back home. She will follow-up with 2 week check ups for a few months.

I keep thinking about what an amazing conversation piece this portrait would be. Any of Alexis's portraits actually! Having Iseline's portrait hanging in your home or office would allow for the opportunity to talk about the children in our world that are in desperate need of good nutrition and would be an amazing reminder of how blessed most of us truly are.

Check out this portrait at our Etsy site!

New Portrait on Etsy- Begendy

This sweet little boy is Begendy. His sister has also been in the RC, both with severe malnutrition. Their father brought them in and their mother has been very sick and unable to work. They have one other child and they have lost two children already to kwashiorkor (one died in the RC a few years ago.) Thankfully, Begendy was healthy enough to go home to his family.

Children like Begendy are brought into the RC every day. Sometimes they gain weight and start to do very well. Sometimes the malnutrition is too advanced and they die. The wonderful people at the Rescue Center in Haiti do everything they can to provide for these children, and our hope is that we can help with their efforts through art and creativity.

Please check out our Etsy site for this amazing portrait by Alexis!

Artist Bio- Alexis

The main reason we started Artists For Hope was obviously to help people. We wanted to give hope to children and help to provide them with the basic things they need to survive.

We realized that art is universal and appeals to people all over the world. People create art and people buy art. We want people to come here to learn about new artists and purchase artwork that will help provide food and medical care to children that need it SO much.

We want this blog to be a place where we can tell people about the artists that have so generously donated to Artists For Hope. I know many of you have already seen the portraits of Rosena and Deny that Alexis has created...and now it's time for you to learn a little more about this amazing artist.

Alexis studied art at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and has continued studying art at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. She started doing portraits for family and friends in college and word spread quickly of her talent. She began doing portraits for clients while living in Chicago and has been doing custom portraits ever since. She often works from photos (sometimes directly off her computer screen) and uses Prismacolor pencils to create her work. She is excited to be able to use her gift to make a positive mark on the lives of the children in Haiti and she hopes her drawings will bring hope to the children and joy to the people who purchase them.

Thank you Alexis! Please check out her amazing portrait of Deny, who is still living at the Rescue Center in Haiti and check our Etsy Site soon for more of Alexis's portraits that she has so generously donated. If you would like more information from Alexis about doing a custom portrait, please contact her at

♫

alexis_laguardia@yahoo.com

Waiting and Thank you

If you haven't already, take the time to read about little Nerlande. Her story is incredible and I was SO happy to see how great she looked when I checked the RHRC website today.

Here she is now...
2 pounds bigger and looking so healthy!

Here she is when she came into the Rescue Center.
She has already been through so much in her little life.
I can't even imagine!
The money we are raising is going to give HOPE to children like Nerlande.

One of the things Artists For Hope was able to do with money from the artwork donated so far was have new dresses made for the children at the RC. Scrub material was donated to them and they were able to employ some women to sew uniforms/dresses for the children that live at the center. The children now have a clean, new outfit to wear and someone was able to earn some money for their family by sewing....thanks to your donations.

We have also donated just for the general needs of the center, but it's nice to see something specific that has come from your purchases. The people who work at the Rescue Center work hard day after day to help these children and adults and I know they are very thankful for the artists and people who have purchased artwork to help them. Thank you!

If anyone has gone through the process of starting a Non Profit, will you let me know. We want to get going on this ASAP, but honestly it kind of makes my head hurt. I'm hoping there is someone who has gone through the process and can give us some tips. I know it's a bit of a long process and I don't really want to wait to get things going...but I know it's the next step we need to take. Thanks!