Family-Friendly Activity for Christine Ann Residents
Posted on Dec 11, 2014, by Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass
Last week residents at the Christine Ann Domestic Abuse Shelter visited the museum for a family activity in The Glass Studio. The visit is part of the Fortified By Fire program that the museum began earlier this year with the help of a partnership grant from the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region. The goal of the program is to increase access to and inclusion in the arts for under served populations in our community. Our hope is that by introducing these populations to a free, public museum in their community they will use the museum as a resource for a wholesome family-friendly activity in the future.
Fourteen women and children ages two to fourteen years old, two UW-Oshkosh student interns and counselors from the center arrived at the museum for the program. The plan was to create an opportunity for them to experience the beauty around them while participating in a positive, family-friendly activity that allowed the kids to just be kids during a stressful time in their lives.
The families were treated to a light supper and a story ready by museum glass studio assistant, Dawn Passineau. Passineau used Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” story as inspiration for the group’s studio experience with glass fusing. The women and children first experimented with making a fused glass pendant or key chain for their very own. Then they progressed to creating a piece for an installation in the playroom at the shelter. The women and children made either a caterpillar or butterfly for the playroom project.
The Christine Ann counselors believe the image of the caterpillar to butterfly is a powerful symbol of the positive changes the women are making in their lives. The museum staff loves the connection between the process of fusing individual, and sometimes sharp, pieces of glass to create a beautiful end product and the process these families are going through to build more healthy lives.
At the end of the family-friendly evening, the museums staff knew that they had accomplished their goal of creating a positive experience where kids can be kids when a few of the boys, with smiles on their faces, spontaneously came up to the staff and thanked them for the “fun time” and then grabbed another cookie.
The Fortified By Fire program includes studio experiences for at-risk and special education students from Shattuck Middle School in Neenah, women and children’s groups and all-women groups from Christine Ann Domestic Abuse Services. The program is funded through June 2015.
If you are interested in contributing to the Fortified By Fire program, you can donate online or contact Jan Mirenda Smith for more information.