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Worldwide Art Exchange with Ben Affleck #actors
Saturday, May 5, 2012 at 9:50PM 
I’ve extended Ben Affleck’s reign as King Dong, for another month, so as to not have any missing months with no leading actors this year. Therefore, let’s just say that he is our March and April 2012 King Dong. During April, most of my attention was focused on the A to Z Challenge, so the King Dong series took a backseat to the daily blog posts. A May 2012 King Dong will be announced before this weekend is over but I’d like to take a moment to highlight one of Affleck’s favorite charities, Children Mending Hearts.
Although I mentioned this charity in the post about Ben Affleck being a top GOP pick for everything from economic matters to movie casting choices in Washington, I did not highlight any details about the organization. So in honor of Ben Affleck’s extra, bonus month, here are some tidbits about Children Mending Hearts (CMH) that some of you may not know (or maybe you did; in that case, let the info serve as a nice reminder).
Ben Affleck serves on the Board of Advisors for Children Mending Hearts, an organization that provides art education and art workshops for at-risk and homeless youth. One of their workshops is titled “Please Mr. President” and participants include at-risk and homeless children who write letters and paint T-shirts and backpacks for disadvantaged youth in other countries. Through these arts exchange programs, CMH aims to build its participants’ self-esteem and hope for a brighter future where they can reach their full potential.
Children Mending Hearts partners with many organizations around the globe to connect youth who can share their life stories with other young people living in similar or worse conditions than they are. CMH also launched an after-school program for at-risk youth in Los Angeles and recently held their annual Spring Benefit Gala, where Tom Cruise’s son, Connor Cruise provided music.
The organization seems to make their art exchange missions a family event -- providing transportation, art supplies, teachers and food for children and their parents or chaperones to engage with youth in another part of the world, through art. Here’s a glimpse of the work that CMH does: in 2011, hundreds of children in Los Angeles, CA painted T-shirts and backpacks for youth in Haiti and Japan.
If YOU were asked to paint a T-Shirt or Backpack for one child or adult in any where in the world, what country would YOU want to send the finished piece to and why?
If YOU could receive a painted T-Shirt from one child or adult in another country, where would YOU want it to come from?
Photo by Erin Lassahn