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Arts organizations are always looking for newer and better ways to create interest and attract the funding they need to survive and thrive. One such New York City organization has found the answer: Sock Monkeys!
Fresh Art is a unique arts organization which uses art and craft to offer hope and healing to, often underserved, segments of the community citywide. Fresh Art offers art & craft workshops free of charge to people with physical and emotional disabilities, HIV and AIDS, long term addiction recovery as well as at-risk youth, seniors and homeless adults and children. They work in cooperation with art therapists and social service agencies to find clients in need of their services.
Exhibitions Director, Suzanne Kreps says, "Our main goal is to help individuals in rebuilding a sense of self-esteem through the pleasure of creativity and the joy of creating." Fresh Art holds regular exhibitions of the work of it's clients. The organization receives grants from foundations as well as donations from individuals.
To suppliment that income, they started making and selling sock monkeys. But, these are not your grandfather's sock monkeys; not like the ones made with the brown socks we all remember from childhood. Really, any kind of socks can be used; all sorts of colors and patterns, novelty socks, even toe-socks (which create a monkey with a mohawk). Fresh Art volunteers convene every other Monday night, in their donated office space on lower Broadway, to hold a sort-of sock monkey sewing bee. There is a core group of eight dedicated senior monkey makers while other monkey makers migrate in and out. Each has their own reason for participating, though all find it rewarding. Right after 9/11, Ann Marie Harris was looking to volunteer for something, and found her calling with the sock monkeys. She has been volunteering ever since.
The monkeys produced at the sewing bees, as well as sock monkey note cards, are offered for sale at events as well as in Fresh Art's on-line gift shop.
In addition to making monkeys for sale, monkey making is one of the workshops they offer to clients. At a recent workshop held in Harlem, at a residence for formerly homeless men fighting addictions, Molly Kearns, senior monkey maker marveled, "it was sweet to see how tender some of these big, burly men were sewing their monkeys, and some were naturally talented sewers." Each client leaves the monkey making workshop with a sense of accomplishment, as well as a new little friend. Whether created by volunteeers or clients, as the monkeys take shape, each develops an undeniable personality. At another workshop, a resident said of her monkey, "He's going to watch TV with me now."
Many of the clients served by Fresh Art are isolated by their circumstances, and the workshops offer them a chance to be a part of a community again. When offered the opportunity of a creative outlet everything falls away; pain, and hunger are diminished. Often, an introduction to the arts creates a positive addiction to replace a negative one.
For more information on how you can donate your time, money, materials, or a monkey, visit their website:www.freshartnyc.org
