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1st appeared 10 June 1999

Art for Recovery Program Helping People Heal

Thirty-seven seventh and eighth grade students from Marin's Brandeis Hillel Day School will finally have a chance to meet their adult pen-pals who have cancer or AIDS at a "healing service" to take place at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center on Friday, June 11, from 1:30 to 3 p.m.

The adults are participants in the UCSF Stanford Health Care Art for Recovery program that gives patients with life-threatening illnesses an opportunity to express their feelings through drawing, painting, collage and poetry. Through the "Art for Recovery/Brandeis Pen Pal Project," patients and teens communicate by exchanging letters and artwork once a month throughout an entire school year.

"Through this project, the teens have learned about empathy and compassion and how to look beyond their insulated worlds," said Cindy Perlis, director of Art for Recovery. "In addition, the patients who participate in the program -- ranging in age from 22 to 55 -- are able to share their experiences with the teens and talk about who they were before they became ill and who they are now."

Perlis created the "Art for Recovery/Brandeis Pen Pal Project" seven years ago. More than 150 students and 100 patients have participated.

The Art for Recovery program also created the breast cancer quilt project four years ago to help women deal with the painful issues around breast cancer. To date, hundreds of women with breast cancer have completed squares for the project. Squares have also been created in memory of loved ones who have died.

Women with breast cancer who live in San Francisco's Western Addition neighborhood gathered at Mount Zion on March 24 to create squares for the "Western Addition Breast Cancer Quilt." Women living with breast cancer, as well as friends and family wishing to honor the memory of a loved one, participated in a two-hour workshop to create their piece of the quilt. Some brought personal items from home that related to their breast cancer experience, which were then sewn into the quilt.

Links:

Quilts Capture Women's Experience with Cancer

UCSF Stanford Health Care

Source: Abby Sinnott, News Services

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