Student art projects for local seniors a ‘two-fer’ for Franklin Regional art teacher
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Franklin Regional High School art teacher Lori Mozina found a way to brighten the days of residents at two local senior homes in addition to getting her students their required community service hours.
National Art Honors Society members, along with a large group of high school art students, created photos, drawings and paintings to be mounted and distributed to nearly 270 senior residents at St. Anne Home in Greensburg and William Penn Personal Care Center in Penn Township.
“The NAHS kids have to perform 10 hours of community service through their artwork, and a lot of my students tend to put that off until the end of the year,” Mozina said. “I had a lot of kids who couldn’t earn hours because they were working on projects in the school, like a mural, that we don’t have access to.”
Mozina is coordinator for the Westmoreland County Animal Response Team and, through that, she cultivated a relationship with administrators and residents at St. Anne Home.
“The residents make pet beds for our response teams,” she said. “I was talking with my contact there, and I mentioned how bad I felt for the residents because they’re stuck in their rooms with only limited time out of them, and my initial thought was, how could we brighten their day?”
That’s when things clicked.
“I opened it up to not just NAHS but any of my art students and, with a grant from the Gurrentz Foundation, we were able to purchase little acrylic frames with a small ‘foot’ at the bottom so it will stand up,” Mozina said. “The idea was that every resident would get to choose a picture for their room.”
Mozina now is collecting the third round of student artwork, ranging from multi-medium collages to abstract designs and photographs.
“I’m also teaching photography and those students are doing a lot of digital work,” Mozina said. “All the kids have a cell phone, so for those who don’t have all the art supplies they would need, they can create art using digital photography.”
Student art runs the gamut from a colorful fish made with construction paper to a painting of downtown Miami to a photo portrait of a dog snoozing on the floor.
Mozina plans to assemble them and deliver them to the senior homes next week.
“I can’t hand them out, but I did suggest that they let residents pick which one they want,” she said. “We tried to pick positive images, things that were uplifting.”
Mary Melko, the director for resident and community engagement at St. Anne Home, said it’s a wonderful gesture.
“We’ve had a lot of groups doing things to cheer up the residents,” she said. “I think it brightens their day to know that the community is thinking about them. Especially now, when they can’t get out and can’t be in large groups, things like this are very helpful.”