From OncoLog, December 2003, Vol. 48, No. 12
Children’s Art Project Has Been Improving the Lives of Children with Cancer for 30 Years
by Karen Stuyck
David is nine years old and receiving treatment for osteosarcoma at
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he also goes
to school. His picture “Stick Flowers” appears both on a notecard
and in a children’s book, Our Seasons, produced by M. D. Anderson’s
Children’s Art Project.
Jaime is a 13-year-old with Ewing’s sarcoma who also attends M. D. Anderson’s in-hospital classroom while receiving treatment. Jaime
has two designs this year in the annual holiday card collection: a praying
angel and a shepherd and lamb. In addition, his watermelon art appears
in the Children’s Art Project’s Alphabet Garden book, and
his picture of an apple heart is on notecards, a note cube, a list pad,
and magnets.
These young artists are part of a long line of patients who have contributed
to, and benefited from, the Children’s Art Project. In 1973, an
Anderson Network volunteer remarked that a young patient’s artwork
was “pretty enough to be a Christmas card,” and the rest,
as they say, is history. At first, the project focused only on holiday
cards, but now it produces a variety of gifts and cards featuring original
art from young patients.
Over the past 30 years, the Children’s Art Project has raised more
than $17 million for patient-focused programs at M. D. Anderson. This
year, profits from the sale of the project’s products will fund
$1.5 million of programs: summer camps for young patients and their siblings,
a ski trip for amputees, teachers’ salaries and other expenses for
the in-hospital classroom, and college and graduate scholarships that
so far have helped more than 400 patients earn college degrees.
“The purpose of the Children’s Art Project is to make life better for children with cancer by funding programs that benefit the patients’ educational, emotional, and recreational needs,” said Shannan A. Murray, executive director of the project. To that end, the project funds music and art therapy, vocational training for young adults, and the salaries of six child-life specialists who provide therapeutic play activities and emotional support to young patients.
Artists have been as young as two years old and as old as 18, Murray
said. This year, 44 different designs by children will be featured on
various products, which now include children’s books, calendars,
cards for all seasons, journals and address books, Christmas tree ornaments,
T-shirts, jewelry, neckties, and scarves.
Children create most of the art during weekly art classes at the hospital.
If a child is too sick to come to class, the art teacher will go to the
child’s bedside, Murray said. Brothers and sisters of patients also
may attend the class because “we know cancer affects the whole family,
and siblings are affected along with the patients,” she said.
The Children’s Art Project staff never suggests specific subjects
for the young artists to draw; instead, they comb through hundreds of
designs made by the children. If a child’s drawing is not picked
one year, it could still be used later on.
The artists whose designs are used on a card or gift receive honorariums
as well as samples of all the products containing their artwork. Most
important, they receive the knowledge that they have helped their fellow
patients, and themselves, through a difficult time.
For more information on this topic or for questions about M. D. Anderson’s treatments, programs, or services, call the M. D. Anderson Information Line at (800) 392-1611 (in the United States) or (713) 792-3245 (in Houston and outside the United States).
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