our house
Young ambassadors use art to create their safe places
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Even the very young understand that physical and emotional abuse of children is unacceptable. Through a special art competition sponsored by A Safe Place, for the past three weeks children at the elementary school, Boys and Girls Club members and children from the general community of families have been transforming small wooden houses into their version of "safe" homes to convey the message that "Every Home Should Be A Safe Home" as part of the agency's second annual Children Against Child Abuse project. Judging of the winning entries took place Monday afternoon.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent The arts room at the Boys and Girls Club was packed with children all last week as they worked through Saturday to complete their designs of "safe homes" by decorating small wooden houses as part of the second annual Children Aagainst Child Abuse art competition sponsored by A Safe Place. Each participating child received a certificate and bag of prizes, and first, second and grand prize winners were chosen Monday.

"It's a very basic concept that each individual kid understands - that you should be safe in your own home," said Kristen Brock, who founded the project last year in her role as one of the coordinators at A Safe Place. "Then, those kids are our ambassadors - they are taking that [message] home to parents, family and friends. It seems well supported by the community. We've had calls nearly every day about donations [of materials]. Last year it was a pilot project and it did work."

Each child entering the competition provided a narrative explaining the story they wanted to tell through the decoration of their house. Supplies or funding for supplies this year came from the Nantucket Arts Council, The Toy Boat and many other businesses and individuals. The Boys Club's program director Cory Shepherd offered use of the club's arts room and assistance from its arts coordinator Brendan Lawlor all last week for club members and all day Saturday for non-member children in the community.

Excerpts from the narratives and watching the children at work reveal their thoughts and creative imaginations. One child planned a tree in the yard that could magically lift the house off the ground if the children were threatened by harm. Another wanted to cover the house with magic princesses to keep its young inhabitants safe. Yet another, who stated that no punching, yelling or fighting was allowed in his home, was to surround it with an electric fence to keep bad guys away. One house was to rest on peace puddles that would turn anyone stepping in them into a peaceful person, while another child said a safe home is a "soft home" where only quiet voices are permitted.

Walking around the club's arts room last week when an animated group was completing their projects, several boys were as immersed in their creations as the girls, though the girls often used a lot of flowers and the boys tended toward animals, both as symbols of peace and of protectiveness. One home had the words Peace House applied to its roof; another displayed a sign proclaiming Happy Hearts Day, with another having letters of the word 'kind' strung through tree branches in the yard.

A girl explained that a bear she glued into the yard was there to protect against yelling, a horse and dog protected against children being hit and a flock of roosters warned against danger. Her friend had a sign reading "No fighting. No yelling" attached above the door to her home and filled her yard with cotton 'snow' where bad people would become lost before they could cause harm.

Though all project participants received a certificate and cloth grocery bag from Stop & Shop filled with prizes, a grand prize award was decided by local artists and given on Monday. A gala event for the public will be held at the Boys Club on April 28 when the Safe Place home

creations will be on display. I