My name is Claire, and I am in grade 12 in the Comox Valley. Through the Neighbourhood Small Grant program, I organized and led art classes for 7-9 year olds at the local community centre. I ran two ten-person classes in the fall of 2024. I have enjoyed making art since I was young, and I am passionate about extracurriculars being accessible to all children.
After receiving the grant, I contacted the local community centre about space rentals and started brainstorming lesson ideas. Working with younger kids was definitely a learning curve. I wasn’t sure what concepts they’d be interested in or if they would prefer individual-led independent sessions. I’ve worked with kids before through various volunteering opportunities, but I’ve never led or planned the events. Thankfully, I got a lot of help for the planning from my mom, who works in elementary schools. I chose to do one class where we designed and created our own nature journals with an emphasis on understanding complementary and contrasting colours, and a second class where we painted flower pots which the kids got to take home filled with soil and a pansy. I think both projects were successful, however, the first project was much faster, and I wish I had prepared a bigger range of activities for the kids to do once they were done.
This project taught me how important it is to ask for help. One of the great things about community is that everyone benefits from collaboration. I initially struggled a lot with the feeling that the project had to be perfect. I got too focused on the small details to the point where the project started to feel overwhelming before it had even begun. I gained a lot of insight from communicating with the amazing program coordinator at the Comox community centre and other people in the community.
Two final things I would change if I could go back would be to make a bigger priority of getting good pictures taken and to have a better reception system to make it more straightforward for parents to fill out the photo-consent paperwork when they drop off their kids.
