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A Very Special Arts Festival

The Art Of Caring

LINDA CHION KENNEY/Staff photo

Colson Elementary School preschooler Christina Salmeron, back, applies make-believe facepaint to her classmate, Paulina Rosales.

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By LINDA CHION KENNEY

Published: March 3, 2007

Any time a high school senior can get out of school is a good time, generally speaking, and so it was for Cameron Bullock.

But he said he had even more of a reason to celebrate when his absence from school coincided with his visit Feb 20 to First Baptist Church of Brandon, where he helped entertain about 250 children from nine greater Brandon area schools.

Mostly preschoolers, these children have special needs and that made the visit even more special for Bullock, who participated in the Very Special Arts Festival with fellow members of the Leo Club at Bloomingdale High School. The club is a service organization formed in conjunction with the Lions Club.

"You get out of school and while you're out of school you help the community," Bullock said. "It's not everyday you get to help a whole group of kids with disabilities. It just makes you feel like a good person, deep down where it counts."

Call it a win-win for the Brandon Service League, a member of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs, which each year depends on the Leo Club's help in staging the festival for students with special needs, including hearing-impairments and wheelchair confinement.

Among the participating elementary schools were Colson, FishHawk Creek, Kingswood, Lopez, Mango, Seffner, Valrico and Yates.

"It's just so heart-warming and amazing to see the high school kids jump in. They're so critical to what we do," said Jean Weicherding, a service league member and two-year festival chairwoman. "They're an awesome group of kids and they look forward to the event as much as we do."

The "doing" included puppet shows, facepainting, dancing, singing, crafts and lunch.

"It's such a great enrichment for these children, a hands-on experience that brings smiles to their faces," said Polly Stetler, a Yates volunteer.

Cathy Salamun, a teacher with Yates' Early Exceptional Learning Program, said the day's events are nice enough, but being able to do them with a large group of students in a community setting is even better.

"These kids are capable of doing everything we do, and they enjoy everything, just like any kid would," she said.

The Very Special Arts Festival kicked off 16 years ago, the brainchild of Alice J. Storms, for whom the annual event is named. She worked with the Florida Diagnostic Learning Resources System (FDLRS) to get the festival under way. The event is run by the service league in conjunction with FDLRS and the Hillsborough County School District.

"I love it, absolutely love it, and the kids look forward to it every year," said teacher Antonella Curigliano of FishHawk Creek Elementary School. "It's great that we get to see everybody we know, and to meet new people and children, and for the children to be able to get out and socialize with other children, to hang out with them and the parents and to get to know them better."

Ron Smith is the pastor for the deaf at First Baptist Church of Brandon.

"I just think the festival is incredible," he said. "It serves the need of giving these young kids something special to go to and it serves a real purpose in the life of those teenagers who come to help. And also, just in the life of the church, it puts the word out there that we have a special needs ministry and a deaf ministry in our church."

As he spoke, the kids from Colson Elementary School were packing up to leave.

"Every year the festival gets even better," teacher Katy Pitrowski said. "These ladies do a wonderful job for the children."

Count among them service league member Rosemary Zameroski.

"When you see these little children, some of them really struggling to communicate verbally, or to meet their challenges physically, and doing it so graciously and with smiles on their faces, it really does warm your heart," she said. "It really makes you pause and be thankful for how blessed you are."

Leo Club member Kyle Paladini agreed.

"These kids have things wrong with them, but they're so happy," he said. "It's hard to feel sad when they're so happy."

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