Dear Grace Art Camp Families,

Jambo!

At Grace Art Camp we love a good story, and I’m delighted to be reporting to you the rest of the story from our summer in the Serengeti.

Many of you have inquired about the results of our fund raising efforts this year for Naomi Elim and for Chwele Village. You will be pleased to know that we raised a total of $7,500 by creating and selling our rafiki bracelets this summer. The fund was divided between the Daraja Academy for Girls and the Community Center in Chwele. Checks for $3,700 were sent to the appropriate governing bodies for those locations.

In return, we have received beautiful letters of gratitude from the founders of Chwele and Daraja, and most especially, we have received a heartfelt letter and photographs from Naomi Elim herself. We will post these on our web site for you to see.

As you know we were sent wonderful art and letters from the children and students of Kenya and, here at Grace Art Camp, we created our own art and personal letters for the children of Chwele and Daraja. Our original intent was to simply find a way to send the art and letters to Kenya.

However, as we thought about it, we decided we could do better than that. We decided we could deliver the art and the letters ourselves….in person. And that’s what we are going to do!

On Monday, October 17 th, I will be leaving for Kenya to take the art and letters to the people of Chwele and the students at Daraja. Accompanying me will be Grace Art Camp artist Julie Romberg. Julie is a ceramicist and printmaker, and arrangements have been made for her to teach printmaking, t-shirt design (perhaps ceramics) to children and adults in Chwele village and at Daraja.

My own mission will be to meet with the leadership in both locations to explore ways in which we might be able to continue this wonderful relationship between Kenya and Grace Art Camp to the benefit of all. I look forward to discovering ways for us to stay connected to our friends in Africa at a very personal level: letters and email between the children of GAC and the children of Kenya, family visit opportunities, artist exchange possibilities, open conversation and continuing connection via various technological resources.

This is the start of a wonderful new chapter in the life of Grace Art Camp. Not only will we continue to honor cultures around the world by studying closely the art and stories of those cultures, but we will make connections to the people who live them in very real, person-to-person ways. With the help of technology this kind of connection is made more and more possible.

As representatives for Grace Art Camp, Julie and I will be speaking for all of you as we meet the people we embraced from afar this summer. We will be speaking to them of our desire for friendship and continued connection, of our support for all they are trying to achieve and of our partnership with the people of Chwele and Daraja as we work together toward a peaceful and fulfilling life for all.

Please keep Julie and myself in your thoughts and send us a sense of your energy and enthusiasm for all that we hope to accomplish in Kenya as, with you, we bring this new dimension of connection between Grace Art Camp and the people of the world,

Asante sana,

Esme Culver
Camp Director
Grace Art Camp