August - September 08

Children Art Foundation Forges a Collaborative Agreement with the Guild School in New York City.

By Tanapol Pachoei – Executive Director

We are pleased to announce that CAF will begin to provide educational support to the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Guild School, housed on the Third Floor of the Jewish Guild for the Blind (www.jgb.org), located on 65th Street between Broadway and Central Park West in Manhattan.

The Guild School is a nonsectarian special education school that serves approximately fifty students, who travel to the school from all five boroughs of New York City and throughout the metropolitan area, aged five through 21, who are visually impaired and have additional disabilities. Students in the Guild School are grouped by skills levels and not by grade. The student/staff ratio is 3:1 and teachers are certified in special education.

Children Art Foundation will recruit and provide professional established artists to volunteer their time spending two hours a week on site at the Guild School throughout the school year. CAF’s Visiting Artists will serve as Teaching Assistants (T.A.’s), working collaboratively with the school’s Art Therapist (Ms. Sarah Valeri) to enhance art education services. CAF’s T.A.’s will meet individually and with groups of students under the guidance of the Art Therapist, assisting the students to create art projects that will ultimately help develop the children’s overall skills and abilities.

CAF has committed to organize and publicize “Gallery Shows” to showcase the Guild School children’s art projects. These will take place both on site at the Guild School and in established art galleries in NYC.

Currently, CAF artists assisting in this collaborative teaching endeavor include César Alfonso, Willie Baez, René Máynez and Tanapol Pachoei. The artists are working jointly with the Guild School’s Art Therapist, Sarah Valeri, and under the expert guidance of the school’s principal, Patricia Finocchiaro.