The CARE For Kids Foundation has been researching and developing models on which to base customized projects for schools, facilities and communities with different resources. All models include the initial step of putting a group of kids together to share personal experiences about teenage issues, problems and solutions that our youth face in today’s challenging world, and then creating a stage performance to deliver the anti-drug/anti-violence message to their peers. Various models are designed to accommodate specific circumstances within a community, and the development of new models continues as more communities are reached.

The Arts School/Alternative High School Model pairs teenage performing arts students with alternative high school students in a locality where there is both a performing arts school and an alternative high school. The arts students are familiar with the creative process and comfortable onstage. However, both groups of students are welcomed to submit creative pieces to be performed, and the alternative high school students are encouraged to participate onstage.

The Juvenile Detention Home School/College Model pairs teenagers in a detention home with college students who have reached the age allowed into the detention facility, and are preferably involved in a curriculum involving the performing arts or community outreach. The two groups of students share experiences and all participants are asked to submit creative pieces or journals on which to base vignettes. The college students write and produce a stage performance that is presented initially within the JDHS and subsequently at a local venue in the community for area students.

The Rural Community Model is designed for a community that may not have a performing arts high school, but does have organized theater classes for high school students as well as an alternative high school. The two groups share experiences and submit creative pieces, and all participants are given the opportunity to audition for the performance. Local middle and high school students are invited to attend the performance at the selected venue.

The Faith-based Model caters to Youth Groups in any one of the diverse faith-based facilities in any community. The project is conducted at regularly scheduled Youth Group activity times and produced in the facility itself if there is appropriate space, or in a local venue within the community. Kids from other local facilities and schools are invited to attend the performance written and produced by the Youth Group.

There is potential for customization on every model described above, depending upon local resources and circumstantial restrictions. The CARE for Kids project can be implemented into a school or facility and can remain self-sufficient right there on the premises, engaging strictly the kids within the facility. Participating kids can form a roving troupe to travel to other schools and facilities. Any group can aspire to perform in a local performing arts center or community theater where hundreds of kids can be transported to see the performance.

No group is too small to embrace the concept of the CARE for Kids project. Wherever there is a message and an audience, that’s where our work is done.

A team of students from the Center for Digital Imaging Arts of Boston University worked with the CARE for Kids Foundation on a website design project during the Winter Practicum at the school’s Washington, DC location. After four weeks of intense work with the Director of the local non-profit organization, the team launched the CARE for Kids Foundation website on Friday, December 18, 2009.

Students enroll in CDIA BU following college graduation or, in many cases, following a number of years of being in the workplace. They come to enhance their skills in the digital imaging arts, and take advantage of the many options offered according to their needs and timing.

Three times each year selected students participate in a Practicum. Each student team is matched up with a non-profit organization to provide pro bono digital imaging services needed by the organization. In return, the students are afforded “real” content to use in final products destined for their resumes and portfolios. It’s a win-win situation not only for both the students and the non-profit organizations, but also for the community.

Director of the CARE for Kids Foundation Leigh Updike Braun comments that the talent, dedication and professionalism of the student teams assigned to her Foundation were exceptional. CDIA BU student Hayley Sanderson majored in English and is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland. Contessa Crisostomo graduated from Salisbury University in Maryland with a Communications major and was a reporter for three years for The Gazette. Lisa Loyd graduated with an Art History major from the University of Virginia and started her own business of print and web-related services.

The video team assigned to the project was led by Anar Garibov, who remains in the Washington area and has expressed an interest in assisting with additional footage as the CARE for Kids Foundation project evolves into the premiere performance of the first musical. His team members in the Winter Practicum were Katrina Fletcher, Joseph Poleman and Scott Berry. The expertise observed during the production of their contribution to the Foundation’s web presence was exceptional.

Please encourage others to visit the website to learn more about the CARE for Kids Foundation and how it can work in their communities.