We are more than halfway to our $5,000 fundraising goal!
Help us meet the NEA matching grant for our Creative Spirits for Seniors program!
Your generous donation will bring visual & performing arts to seniors, improving their mental health and wellbeing.
Our Creative Spirits for Seniors programs provide sensory-centered visual arts workshops to the elderly in senior centers and assisted living facilities. Arts forms include collage, scratch art, mask making, jewelry design, and book arts.Your support with help seniors:
- Increase dexterity using different materials and assembly
- Improve cognitive skills through making design choices and following instructions
- Develop mental health and wellness by socializing with peers and receiving positive reinforcement from the Teaching Artists.
- Workshops are small, allowing Teaching Artists go at a gentle pace, allowing time for conversations and individual attention
Arts Horizons serves over 20,000 students, families, and seniors in underserved NJ and NY communities with arts educational programs. Our professional Teaching Artists have credentials such as working with Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, performing on Broadway, displaying work at the Smithsonian Museum, and studying at Julliard.
The Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health have endorsed the arts to increase wellness and mental health. Graciela L., a Creative Spirits participant at the Bergen Family Arts Center in 2023, agrees. After the program she shared her thoughts.
“It’s important for seniors to work on different projects. Keep our minds occupied. Because if we are alone and we don’t interact with other people, it’s not the greatest thing for a senior. You stay home, and you look at the four walls, and you look at TV and your brain turns to mush. So, you have to get out. Even if you’re not feeling your very best. Who cares, get up and move. Moving is great. Keeps us going. It’s not only our bodies that we have to exercise. We have to exercise our mind.”