Heartizen’s founder, Jennifer Utsch, recently published a children's book that aims to help children cope with emotions post natural disaster. The book is called "Shining with Resilience."
Kids in Healdsburg who participated in the Heartizens “Includitude Project,” (HIP) an interactive project that encourages kids to get creative and follow along in a series of art projects with a kit of supplies, celebrated the completion of their work with an Amy’s Wicked Slush at the community center on Tuesday, Aug. 11.
The new virtual summer camp was launched by Heartizen’s founder, Jennifer Utsch, back in June and around 140 kids ended up registering for the activity.
In June, Utsch was able to create 400 art supply kits and kids without supplies who wanted to participate in the program were able to receive the kits for free, otherwise, they were $50 per kit.
The HIP boxes were distributed on June 2 at Healdsburg Elementary School, June 3 at the Fitch Mountain campus and on June 6 at Utsch’s art studio on Moore Lane.
In an interview with The Healdsburg Tribune in June, Utsch called the new program a “virtual neighborhood” for art and creativity.
“The HIP kits are really a way for the kids to express themselves,” she said.
The kits were equipped with construction paper, water colors, a watercolor pad, glue sticks, crayons, supplies to make playdough and kids scissors, among other art items.
Art activities in the HIP program correlated with the supplies that were provided in the box and once kids completed 10 activities they could start rack up points in order to earn a small sweet treat from Amy’s.
One of the activities in the kit that all HIP participants took part in was the creation of their own unique flag. Kids were allowed to decorate their individual flag with drawings, poems, a quote or with their own thoughts and dreams, anything that got the creative juices flowing.
At the community center on Tuesday, Utsch brought out the final product, a lengthy, colorful banner of flags strung together with twine and hung from the halls of the community center.
Some flags had brightly colored flowers and trees, while others had a simple symbol like a heart or a star. Some even shared a phrase such as, “Save the Earth,” “Black Lives Matter” and “End COVID-19.”
“It’s so incredible just to see the kids’ imagination,” Utsch said.
She said one of the goals for the summer-long project was to keep kids creating so they could express themselves and digest everything that’s been going on in the world.
“They had such a fun time creating,” Utsch said. “Once you get into that flow (of the creative process) then they could really do whatever they wanted with them, they could put down a story, they could put their visions, their dreams or their gratitudes and it was really interesting to see what theme the child chose.”
After the flag was hung up, Amy’s arrived with a big bin of frozen treats, mango, cherry and other tropical flavors and the kids scrambled to get to their seats to dig into the dessert.
