Guest Blog Post: Devin Johnson, HSA Board of Directors

Yesterday, my daughter Carys and I had the privilege to attend a special event featuring the works of Ezra Jack Keats at the Jewish Museum in partnership with the Harlem School of the Arts (HSA). As an HSA board member, I'm admittedly a novice when it comes to the arts, but extremely passionate about providing artistic outlets for our children...but an event featuring the works of one my daughter's favorite book, Snowy Day could not be missed. There is a lot of debate on the value of arts education, but when you attend an event like I attended on Sunday, the doubt just disappears. We walked in to the museum to see a wonderful reading area for kids to hang out and read or for parents to read to their kids. As you can see from my photo, Carys took this opportunity to ask me to read Snowy Day to her...again.

From the reading area, we went into the auditorium which was absolutely buzzing with activity. Children from all ages and hues where all creating collages in the spirit of Keats' work. The room was just on fire...so much creativity, so much happiness in one place. I loved it. The mural created by the HSA Visual Arts department was amazing and the theater group did a masterful job of recreating 3 of Keats' work. All in all, a great Sunday and well worth missing football for the day.

Thanks to the Jewish Museum for hosting such a wonderful event and congratulations to the Harlem School of the Arts for harnessing the talent of such amazing kids.

The Harlem School of the Arts is participating in the Pepsi Refresh Project...please vote for them to receive a grant to extend art training to NYC Public Schools. Vote for HSA at http://www.refresheverything.com/hsanyc.

HOW TO: Bring Music Education to Underprivileged NYC Children [tutorial]

Want to help expose over 1,000 children to the arts? All you have to do is vote once a day for The Harlem School of the Arts' Pepsi Refresh project. It's free for you to vote and if they win, HSA will receive $25,000 to empower students through the arts. Voting is really easy and will only take you about 30 seconds.

1. Go to http://www.refresheverything.com/hsanyc

2. Click on the "Vote for This Idea" button.




3. Sign in using your Facebook account. If you don't have a Facebook account, then you can create a Pepsi Refresh account.




4. Congrats! You voted! If you have social accounts on Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, etc, then please share this Pepsi Refresh page with your friends.




5. If you want to tweet, then don't forget to /cc your Twitter friends and favorite celebrities. You never know. Just one celebrity retweet could turn the tables and help our project win.




5. Please come back tomorrow and vote again! You can vote once a day between now and November 30th.

6. Thank you!!! Give yourself a pat on the back. Let's win this for the kids!