"It's My Life" Art Contest, Huge Success!!!!

We've been promoting the Student Career Alternative's, "It's My Life" contest across the metro area since January with an underlying fear that no submissions would come in.
High School Art and English teachers in Gwinett, Cobb, Fulton, and Dekalb Counties were all invited to participate by passing along the contest information to their students.

The contest challenged students to create art works inspired by one of four themes:
"Young People Acting for Local and Global Change"
"Your Vision of a Peaceful and Sustainable Future"
"Non-Military Career Paths and Dreams"
"Is America Addicted to War? If so, How Does it Affect you?"

There five art mediums that students could submit entries in:
Music
Essays/Short Stories/Poetry
Photography
Graphic Design
Painting/Mixed Media

Prizes promoted were:
1st place in each medium: 12 month membership to WonderRoot Community Art center along with a very special, funded six month mentorship with a successful artist in that medium.
2nd place in each medium was a $50. gift card to Sam Flax art supply store, donated by Sam Flax!!!!

Then there was an over grand prize of $100. cash.

Our Goal was to provide an opportunity to showcase some of Atlanta's talented youth, possibly provide some new windows of opportunity, and to get folk to really think about some of the themes that each piece was to be inspired by.

Well, during the first week of March all of our worries about light submissions evaporated as we were overwhelmed by phone calls by students, parents, and teachers about the contest. We were invited to come out to more high schools to talk about SCAP and the contest then we could cover. It was pretty amazing to be invited to so many schools to talk about SCAP, many remember that it was just last year that it was like pulling teeth to get school faculty to return a phone call from SCAP. Some administrators even laughed us off their campuses. For the first time ever we were in a position to have to turn down invitations to high school due to capacity, clearly an issue we must address.
By March 15th, the contest deadline, we had 63 amazing entries all worthy of being part of our three week, "It's My Life" exhibit at WonderRoot. As we went through all of the entries that came from a dozen different metro area schools it was clear that the judges of the contest were going to have a difficult time picking winners.

Our panel of judges where:
Joey Arbuckle with Sam Flax
Kwajelyn Jackson with WonderRoot
Haley Murphy with Student Career Alternatives
Jo A Peterson, a professor with Savannah College of Art and Design
Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, renowned painter, photographer, and writer

On Saturday March 20th we held our art opening and awards ceremony at WonderRoot. Turn out was wonderful. We had artists, SCAP members, parents, teachers, students, and other community members come out for the event. One of the highlights was live performances by extremely talented high school students, Aaron Cooper, Iqbal Chandbury, Manuel Allison, and Britnie Valentine.

After performances everyone that entered the contest was given a certificate of participation and invited to get a picture taken next to their art work.

After certificates were given out and pictures were taken Andy Fritz, our emcee for the night, called everyone together and introduced the judges who announced the winners.

Grand Prize
Samara Abdulla- None-military career paths and dreams-Essay.

First Prize
Photography
Lisa Bi – Awakened By Sleepless Nights
Mixed Media
Khris Dixon - Survivors Story
Music
Iqbal Chandbury – One Rhyme
Graphic Design

Michelle Partogi – Peace Starts With Saving One Person
Writing
Wesley Harmon – A Soldier’s Tale

Second Prize
Photography
Courtney Seale - Sacrifice
Mixed Media
Erin Foster – Affected Youth
Music
Aaron Cooper - Fatherless
Graphic Design

Julia Kim – Hello, My Name is Peace
Writing
Manuel Allison – Young People For Local and Global Change

In addition to the 1st,2nd, and grand prize winners WonderRoot extended the offer of a free year long membership to every student that entered the contest!!
We plan to chronicle all of the winners on this blg in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

ALSO!!! Please stop by WonderRoot between now and April 11th to view the art exhibit!!

WonderRoot:
www.wonderroot.org

Sam Flax:
samflaxsouth.com

Student Career Alternatives Program:
scapatl.org


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee