Lehman High art students recently wrapped up work on approximately 40 images they’d created and sent them to kids in Tacloban, Philippines, as part of The Memory Project. The undertaking is part of an international effort to engage art students in creating portraits for youth around the world who’ve been neglected, orphaned or disadvantaged. Locally, it was the project chosen as the 2013-2014 school year’s global service project for the National Art Honor Society at Lehman. Lobo art teacher Debra Flynn said, “The kids receiving the portraits are orphans and have very few belongings, so our students create a special portrait they can take with them wherever they go. Our commitment was one of the biggest commitments the organization (see www.memoryproject.org) had and we managed to get them all done.”

Flynn adds, “Crazy thing about the project was, just a few weeks after we selected our group of kids, the earthquake hit and then the tsunami. Their home was devastated, but everyone survived. I think that makes the portraits even more special because our kids really understood the devastation and all that was happening because of this connection they’d made with the kids [in Tacloban].”