New Orleans is a
dynamic city full of life and color, but it is also a city that contains
blighted neighborhoods with high rates of crime, rundown houses, and a great
divide between underprivileged and affluent areas. The United Saints Recovery
Project (USRP) is located in the Central City neighborhood, which has faced its
share of troubles, but has improved slowly and steadily over the span of our
organization's existence.
USRP has put up over ten murals within Central
City, and plans to put up twenty more murals throughout New Orleans in
2011. With the launch of our Community
Art Program, we will enrich the lives of the people in our neighborhood as well
as local artists, volunteers, children and youth.
We hope to give volunteers a positive and meaningful
experience while they learn the basics of mural painting. We will accomplish this goal with the help of
professional artists, who will be recruited from around the city, the country,
and the world.
A typical day
for our Community Art Program volunteers would consist of a morning
meeting, a quick orientation to the Program's daily goals and necessary
safety precautions. We would then head to the tool yard to grab the necessary
paints, brushes, drafting kits, projector, ladders, etc., and load it all into
a van that would transport our group of volunteers as well as all the materials
we would need for that day. We would set up the site and begin drafting the
mural on the space available, tracing from the projector, creating an outline,
putting down a base coat, adding highlights, shadows, and all the while
teaching and engaging volunteers in the rewarding process of creating art that
will be enjoyed by the multi-generational residents of Central City.
United Saints Recovery Project can offer the Community Art Program office space,
use of a tool shed, vans, volunteer housing, and meeting space. Still, adequate
funding is needed to realize the vision of having enough for the art
program materials and artist stipends.
Rewards for your donation include......
5$ - thanks on our social media
$10 - email updates with photos of murals as they are completed
$25 - the above, plus personal phone call and thanks by program coordinator!!
$50 - all of the above plus.... a framed photo of the first mural, signed with thanks by volunteers
$100 - a framed photo of a mural signed by the designing artist, and a letter from volunteers who worked on the mural telling you what they gained from the Art Program
$250 - all of the above and a United Saints Recovery Project t-shirt
$500 - two night stay at New Orleans non-profit United Saints Recovery Project (dates subject to availability, travel not included)
$1000 - the above, and a trip to the New Orleans Museum of Art, City Park, and Sculpture Gardens
$3000 - 5 night stay at New Orleans non-profit United Saints Recovery Project, domestic travel arranged and included (dates subject to availability)