Dear IB ART Supporters,

I am emailing to ask for your help.  As you know, IB Art creates creative thinkers and passionate youth leaders, an urgent need in todays times.   Through art-based research, students explore topics that are personal and important to them, like mental health, environmental protection, sexual assault, poverty, immigration, gender identity, race and culture, bee colony collapse and other topics urgent to our time.  It is a rare class for a public high school; student-driven, inquiry based, non-competitive and very supportive.  The curriculum was created and honed thanks to hundreds of students suggestions and revisions over the years.  Now, I need your help to continue making this experience available for more students at Berkeley High School. 

I only have a $500 budget for installation each year to make the kids' huge exhibition happen.  My budget for the years' supplies is also low.  To support the 60-80 kids involved each year, I spend a tremendous amount of time scrounging for free materials.  To replace the fabric on the display boards in the galleries will be at least $300 but probably more. Paint is running low, as is glue and paper, watercolors, xacto blades and canvases-we do not have enough to get through to June.  Some kids struggle in the class because they do not have the funding to buy their own supplies.  For basic supplies from now to June for all my students, I need $500.  To upgrade broken tools and buy sufficient materials so we do not run out again next year is another $1,000.  These resources would benefit ALL students who use the studio, not just students in IB Art-your donation would help a LOT of kids.  

Our old computer is dead, leaving us with just one that sort of works.  A single new computer costs $1,799.  Photoshop for digital art is $239 per year  per computer.  Two computers would allow kids not only to research, but to learn Photoshop  and Lightroom so they can digitally correct images for portfolios!  Again, these resources would benefit ALL students who use the studio, not just students in IB Art-your donation would help a LOT of kids.  

If we can raise enough funds, I could take kids to museums and maybe even an overnight environmental art workshop at the Marin Headlands!

Resources are so important to make sure all young artists have the means to create and learn.  With more funding, I could provide many more resources, maybe a computer or two,  or a video camera for portfolios and digital artworks.  $5,500 wont pay for everything we need, but it would give us a HUGE running start!  With a classroom fund to draw from as kids need special materials in the moment, I could spend more time teaching instead of constantly scrambling to keep everything running.   

So, I am asking for your help.   If you found the program valuable for your child, and want to know resources are available for upcoming student artists, I encourage you to donate.  If you took the class and found the freedom to study what you wanted coupled with the coaching to be disciplined in your work habits helped you be ready for college or life beyond high school, I encourage you to donate.   If our close knit classroom helped you feel like you belonged at Berkeley High School, I encourage you to donate.   If, through team building and collaboration, you made friendships and connections deeper than you found in other classes, I encourage you to donate.  Help me make sure this program continues for 10 more years of students and artists after you!  Help build a classroom fund to help us overcome current and future budget issues.  Help us become a sustainable program!

 Attached is a short video of why the class is transformative for so many young people at BHS-these young leaders will leave you amazed and inspired! Help them continue painting, sewing, sculpting, performing and puzzling their way through tough topics of serious cultural significance.  Help them continue teaching their peers through their art.  Thank you SO MUCH for your support.  Together, we can raise this money and keep the studio a transformative place for learning.

Please share this campaign far and wide!
Thank you for  helping nurture Berkeley's next generation of artists and activists!