Letter of Appeal 2014

P.O. Box 29277, San Francisco, California, 94129-0277

November 15, 2014

Dear ArtSeed Friends,

We’ve often begun letters such as this by saying, “This has been our best year ever!” That’s always been true, but this time, we have to add to that sentence a spirited, “Wow!” 2014 has been amazing and gratifying beyond anything we could possibly have dreamt. In recent months we’ve been engaged with some of the most remarkable and articulate youngsters of ArtSeed’s fourteen years.

“ArtSeed has inspired me, not just to make things but also to try to change certain aspects of the reality around me, to try to make them better.” — Sydney V. B., Founding Member, ArtSeed Youth Council

Collaborations with the Willie Mays Boys and Girls Club, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Presidio Trust, and Tides have garnished our work with youngsters in Bayview Hunters Point. We witnessed three- to ten-year-olds at the San Francisco Public Montessori School drawing and writing about why they were inspired by Anton Webern, Gertrude Stein, and Andrea Palladio. All our students composed mottos for coats of arms to hang above miniature, imaginary rooms they made from odds and ends to develop a sprawling shanty town. They exercised critical thinking, expressed their own individuality, and cultivated their tactile intelligence.

Thanks to more dedicated teaching artists and volunteers than ever before, ArtSeed is able to think bigger and broader in its ambitions and programs. In addition to the Leola Havard Early Education School and SF Public Montessori, we are engaged with students at Marina Middle School and the San Francisco Montessori Academy. We are also committed to working with children at the Presidio Early Education School. All of this is possible thanks to support from, among others, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the Pamakid Runners, the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, and, most recently, the California Arts Council Artists in Schools Program.

But our programs depend on generous individual gifts to help ArtSeed connect more Bayview children to their counterparts throughout the city. Significant, ongoing support from Tony and Caroline Grant, along with hundreds of other stakeholders like you, has made our most productive and magical year possible!

ArtSeed’s artists and youngsters are at work on fresh projects related to two long-range, linked themes: “Cottage Industries: Communication, Collaboration, Let’s Beat Poverty in All Its Forms!” (2015) and “Locomotion, Collaboration, Let’s Beat Poverty in All Its Forms!” (2016). Our kids are loaded with energy and promise. They are irresistible change-makers who finally have a home for their art-making with resident artists and educators at ArtSeed’s Cottage. Artists who come to us through this vital new residency program help us with everything we do leading up to our final exhibition at the Thoreau Center for Sustainability. Through their residencies, they are invaluable ArtSeed partners. Join us and them to help launch new programs and a fabulous fifteenth year!

Because ArtSeed is a small organization, its contributors have an intimate sense of how their help benefits the hundreds of students we serve. Support from folks like you counts in very big ways. We are encouraged by gifts of any size that support us in these endeavors and adventures. Our website, www.artseed.org, lists all of those who help and we want to make sure that your name is on that list as we go forward. Please join us. ArtSeed is grateful for your support and we thank you heartily in advance!