A picture is worth a thousand words

Area kids send works of hope to Ukrainian children with cancer.

They are children in a strange land and hospitalized with a scary disease. And they are getting a long-distance welcome to the United States from students at three area schools.

Eight children, 21 months to 17 years, from war-torn Ukraine recently arrived with their families in Memphis, Tenn., not as refugees, but as cancer patients seeking treatment at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Atlantan Linden Longino, the founder of the nonprofit International Paint Pals, heard about their plight and wanted to help lift the children’s spirits. He contacted three teachers and asked if their students could get creative, making cards and other artwork that could brighten the hospital rooms and the days of these sick children.

The teachers and students from W.R. Coile Middle School in Athens, David T. Howard Middle School in Atlanta and Atlanta International School were all eager to help.

“Images from the war were fresh in the news at that point in time,” said Mandy Lebowitz, a visual arts teacher at Howard Middle School. “We talked a little about just creating this as a gesture of kindness from one young person of the world to another.”

Lebowitz enlisted about 25 students, mostly sixth graders, who went to work, creating artwork with “positive messages, subjects, symbols, and imagery … just pleasant messages of hope for good health and well-being,” she said.

Unbeknownst to her, a couple

of the students had family from Ukraine and wanted to write messages to the children at St. Jude in Ukrainian. Others included messages welcoming the children to the United States, and a few wrote about their support for Ukraine in the war with Russia, Lebowitz said.

At Atlanta International School, students were “very happy to take part in this creative adventure,” said teacher Joyce O’brien. “I believe that they thought and felt that they were doing something very good.”

Students at Coile Middle School picked a garden theme for their artistic contributions, remembering how a garden was a source of healing for Mary in “the children’s classic ‘The Secret Garden,’” said visual fine arts teacher Rosaria E. Bang.

About 125 students in sixth through eighth grade at Coile made cards with a fold-out or pop-up that opened into a lovely picture of a garden. Some of the students wrote prayers and sayings in Ukrainian, utilizing Google

Translate, Bang said.

The staff at St. Jude was appreciative and sent thank-you notes to the classes of student artists.

“What a beautiful way to embrace families finding themselves in a new country,” said Richard C. Shadyac Jr., president and CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization at St. Jude.

Longino, whose nonprofit encourages children around the globe to express themselves through art, is pleased.

“These children deserve our love and support,” he said. “I hope this brings smiles to their faces. They are going through so much.”

COURTESY Students at two Atlanta schools and an Athens school sent cards and art they made to eight Ukrainian children who are at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis with their families. All eight have cancer. This is some of the art created by students at Atlanta’s David T. Howard Middle School.