Verizon Foundation Presents Check to the Region 8 Helping Hands Arts Education Fund
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Verizon Foundation Presents Check to the Region 8 Helping Hands Arts Education Fund
Kevin Mahoney, Verizon’s Director of Community Affairs for Brooklyn & Staten Island, presented a check for $7,500 at the Brooklyn High School of the Arts to Support the Region 8 Digital Image Lab.
Brooklyn, NY — Kevin Mahoney, Verizon’s Director of Community Affairs for Brooklyn & Staten Island, presented a check for $7,500 to the Region 8 Helping Hands Arts Education Fund, a partnership with The Fund for Public Schools. The Region 8 Arts Education Fund supports specific initiatives that demonstrate effectiveness in increasing students’ arts skills and knowledge while building community around the arts.
Verizon’s contribution will go to support the Region 8 Digital Image Lab, a work-study internship for high school students in professional digital printing, framing and art collections management. 100% this year’s graduating seniors who participated in the program are attending college in the fall. Offered in partnership with Working Playground, students learn as apprentice master printers with a contemporary digital image expert.
Pictured from left to right are: Brooklyn High School of the Arts students Elizabeth, Omar, Andrew, Kevin Mahoney-Verizon Director of Community Affairs, Brooklyn/Staten Island, Debra Williams-Development Consultant, Philip Courtney-Executive Director, Working Playground, students Jessica, Alexzandra and Andrew Buck, Region 8 Arts Supervisor.
Working Playground, a non-profit arts education organization supporting underserved schools and communities, has been instrumental to the success of the Digital Lab. Teaching artist Alice Proujansky, an artist in her own right, has acted as a mentor to the students involved in the lab for over a year. Natacha Popovici, program coordinator for Working Playground enthusiastically supports the program and thinks it’s great that “students have so much fun together and are learning serious skills that will help them in college and in their own development as artists. It’s cool.”
Andy Buck, program creator, envisions providing “a seamless link of continuity by instituting summer internship for graduating seniors, so that they stay connected to the school community and the digital lab as young adults.”
About Region 8:
Brooklyn’s Region 8 consists of 140 schools, serving more than 70,000 students in the Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Clinton Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Carol Gardens, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park sections of Brooklyn. Corporations and individuals interested in contributing to the Region 8 Helping Hands Education Fund may contact The Fund for Public Schools at 212-374-2874 or Debra Williams, Region 8 Arts Development Consultant at 917-403-1708 for more information.