2009 Summer Camp Support Letter

Dear Friend,
Last summer Urban Arts held three weeks of camp in Detroit for inner city kids. We worked with over 120 children and had wonderful camps! It went so well that our partnering ministries have invited us back, and we have added a new partner! Five weeks of camp are planned for the upcoming summer with City Mission, Central Detroit Christian and Highland Park Community Outreach.

Our goal is to expand the children’s exposure to the performing and visual arts through daily hands-on activities and Christ-centered teaching. This year’s theme is “Celebrate the Gift”. Children will experience the elements of visual art, music, drama and dance. Daily lunch and a snack will be provided. Each camp will end on Friday evening with a dinner and closing performance for friends and family.
This is a faith based ministry. Currently, we have very little funding. So, we are asking individuals, groups, and churches to prayerfully consider sponsoring one or more children for a week of camp. The total cost for a child to attend is $80.00. This amount covers all meals, art supplies, a camp t-shirt, and transportation. Checks may be made out to START Ministries, a Michigan 501-C3 non-profit organization. START (Short Term Ambassador Relief Teams) is graciously handling our funding for this summer with no administrative fee. Therefore, 100% of the money donated to Urban Arts will go toward these summer camps.

Also, enclosed is a list of supplies needed for the camps this summer. We are striving to complete this list from volunteered gift cards or contributions from friends and family. Please consider helping us in this area of need.
If you have any questions, feel free to call or email me.
Serving Him,

Katie Beth Hostetter
Urban Arts Director

“The children at City Mission have so much talent and potential. The Urban Arts program helps children identify and put into practice their talent and potential. We are glad to have such an outstanding partnership.” --Nicole Aikens, Co-Director of City Mission

ITEMS CAN BE PURCHASED WITH A GIFT CARD FROM THESE STORES:
Sam's Club, Wal-mart, Meijers, Costco, Speedway, BP, Mobile)
sandwich makings
snacks (goldfish, fruit snacks, ect.)
cookies
juice boxes (100)
Mini-DV taps for video camera (30)
colored gaffer tape
100 brown paper lunch sacks
zip lock sandwich bags
3 CD players
300 CD-R disks
gift card for gas stations (Speedway, Meijers, BP, etc)

Crazy For Christ

The theme for the Urban Art kids at CDC this semester is "Crazy 4 Christ". We are talking about how we can show others every day, in every action, how crazy for Christ we are. The previous week we encouraged the kids to bring something in that they enjoy doing and share how they can be "crazy for Christ" while doing it. We had one girl come up before class who shyly showed us her musical recorder. She asked if she could share a song on the recorder. As simple as it sounds, Tyana wanted to use what she learned on her little plastic recorder and play for God. She is 1 in 50+ kids. If she is the only one who "gets it" this semester, it will be totally worth everything I do.

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

Tonight was the City Mission Urban Arts performance at Kensington with the New Community Kids. It went really well and my kids were on their best behavior! I am so proud of them:) Here are some pictures to enjoy.

What We Take for Granted

How many of you guys out there own a white button down shirt? a pair of black pants? a pair of dress shoes? I would guess that most of you would have this in your wardrobe, even if you don't wear it all the time. And ladies, what about a nice "Sunday" dress, dress shoes, a pair of tan pants?

This past week, I was working with my elementary kids at City Mission and they wanted to know what the costumes were for our performance in December. Since we are partnering with KCC, we are matching their costumes. It's pretty basic: girls wear pretty party dresses, boys wear white shirts and black pants for the first set. The costumes for the second set are tan pants and a solid color shirt. As I explained the two different costumes, I began to see some worried faces and a few hands began to raise. I knew then, it wasn't going to be as simple as opening up the closet door and pulling out one pair of many tan colored pants. These kids don't have that luxury. Once again, my heart broke for these children. But, they will not go without this Christmas performance if I can help it! Thrift stores here I come!:) If any of you would like to help out by letting a child borrow a piece of clothing or buy them a new item for this performance it would be the best Christmas present they could get!

The Best Story So Far...

So on Tuesday night, I handed out 54 CD's to the kids at CDC so that they would be able to practice their music at home. I wasn't really sure how well the music was going over with the kids after the second week, but after hearing this story, I know! Laura, who is helping teach the classes with me, relayed this story to me after talking with a CDC staff member. This staff member was driving a van full of kids home after the program and as soon as the kids hopped in the van they started saying, "Mark! We got our very own CD's! We get to take them home and keep them and listen to them and practice with them!" They then proceeded to ask Mark to put the CD in so they could jam to it. So as the kids were being dropped off at their homes, they were singing along to the Christmas songs!:) I guess they are liking it!:) That was such an encouragement to me and put a smile on my face, so I just wanted to share it!!

Do we have to add the little kids?

Since we only had 9 kids at City Mission's Urban Arts last week, I felt the led to open it up to the third grade class for the fall. When the six kids walked into the class, the first question from a fourth grader was, "Do we have to add the little kids?". Of course, I was smiling inwardly, but I had to keep a straight face as I explained that we did "have to add them" and said how it would be even more fun with them! After we began playing our first drama game, I think all 15 kids were happy to be together.

We handed out the practice CD's for the kids to begin listening to and learning the music for the Christmas program. I was actually a few CD's short and felt awful, but promised the kids they would get them next week. They were very understanding. One little girl came up to me after class and asked what she should do if she didn't have a CD player at home. I wasn't sure if she was telling the truth or not, but I believe she is and it broke my heart. I'm going to confirm with her teacher at school and see if I can get her a cd player.

Meet & Greet for Urban Arts @ City Mission

This past Thursday was the first night of the mentoring/urban arts program at City Mission for the junior and senior high students in the Brightmoor neighborhood. There are 35 kids signed up for the program. I've been working with the director of the mentoring program to smooth out a schedule for all these kids since I am the only one teaching on this night. The way that everything falls for this term it looks like we will have 5 non-consecutive weeks to provide the program and then have a performance in December. With God all things are possible, right!:) Technically, i'm not starting until Oct. 23, so i'm still working on choosing the content that will work the best for this schedule. It's not been easy, so i'd love your prayers! Also, please pray that each of the kids in this program would have the desire to be there and have a good attitude shown through action and word. It makes a world of difference to the atmosphere of the class!

Opening Day for Urban Arts After School

Yesterday was the kick off for the after school programs with Urban Arts. I did double duty in the city starting with the program at City Mission in the afternoon and then jogging over to central Detroit to teach at CDC. Both programs ran pretty smoothly. My friend, Laura, who is helping me on Tuesdays did a great job team teaching with me!

At City Mission, we are working with the 4-6 graders at the academy. It's a small group of kids, but they are wonderful! We are focusing on drama and vocal music this fall. A good friend of mine directs a children's program called New Community Kids at Kensington Community Church. We have decided to partner with them and give the City Mission kids a chance to experience a performance on a "real" stage with the kids from NCK. I think this is going to be such a great experience for them!

Central Detroit Christian has us working with kindergarten through 6th grade. We have a lot of kid! Two grades rotate at a time to us for a 30 minute period. The other two segments they get are Bible and Academics. It's really a neat way to provide all three elements for the kids. The only downfall is the 30 minutes feels like about 10 after we start working with them. I know I am going to be asking the Lord to multiply my time!

In both programs we are focusing on our Christmas performance at the beginning of December. City Mission is learning a Christmas medley that will tie in with the kids at KCC and then will be working on another Christmas song and short drama for their local performance. Central Detroit Christian kids are working on a 5 song Christmas medley with choreography and props. Both are going to be pretty cute!

Writing curriculum-sounds like fun, huh:)

I had a good meeting today with CDC, Central Detroit Christian. I was asked to create the curriculum for the K-5th grade arts portion of their Breakthrough Enrichment program that is held on Tuesday nights. I was planning on teaching an Urban Arts class for middle school girls already, but when I was approached with this task, I prayed about it and felt like this was a greater need in CDC's ministry. Since I am partnering with different ministries in Detroit, I believe strongly in being sensitive to the needs of the ministry. So, for at least the first term, through Christmas, I'll be focusing on the elementary kids.

I am going to miss my summer staff. I have only one volunteer who is available to serve with me on Tuesday nights. Thank goodness though! She will be focusing on the music and I on the drama. As I type this, my brain is going in a million directions thinking about what the kids will perform for the program. Pray that the Lord continues to give me creativity in designing a program for this fall and for the next term. (and of course, those of you who have creative minds, feel free to comment with any ideas you may have!)

Phase 2

Today I'm headed to a City Mission program meeting to propose my Urban Art after school program for this fall. After a successful summer camp program, I'm excited that they are interested in us continuing the program. There's a lot of work to be done, but please continue to pray for this whole adventure as I am learning what it means to daily walk by faith.

Urban Arts Camp Video 2008 (short version)

Here's a look at this past summer working with the kids in Detroit. There are video clips at the end including the three different performances.

God's Week of Camp

This was by far the hardest week of Urban Arts camp. But it taught me so much and streached my character in ways I never would have imagined. The entire week was constantly changing minute by minute and I was having to remind myself to be "flexie cookie". (that's a whole different story for another time)

I found out on Monday afternoon that the kids would be only having four full days of camp because the ministry we were partnering with had a roller skating field trip planned for all 175+ people on the last day. Since we lost a day this drastically changed our game plan for teaching the performance pieces to our 45 kids.

On Tuesday I wanted to get confirmation about our performance time and location. The church we were holding the camp in was not open on Friday so we would not be able to do our afternoon performance on their amazing stage. Plan B-find another location. Ha! It sounds simple, but then we have to think about a dress rehearsal and transportation for the kids, etc. The decision was made that the dress rehearsal would take place at our original location on the stage on Thursday if we could get permission. We would use the sound equipment from another church volunteering at the elementary camp that week. Pushing the dress rehearsal up a day cause the class schedules and art classes to be bumped around again. Once that was all settled we continued to move through Tuesday and Wednesday fairly smoothly. Thursday came at us more quickly than realized. All morning we worked with the kids on the stage, blocking and rehearsing where they would stand for the OTHER stage which was a different size. All in all, it went fairly well. Some of the boys didn't want to participate and were acting up, but I believe it is because they were nervous about practicing in front of the girls and other helpers. As we went through the rehearsal, they became more comfortable and started to participate more. Thursday afternoon was spent finishing the t-shirts the kids would wear for the performance and completing their art projects.

My team arrived at the performance location (new church) about 12:30. The kids were arriving at 1:15 from roller skating and we were going to run through the program before the 2:00 performance. At 12:45, after things were loaded in and we were going to check the sound, I realized something was missing. The sound equipment. Um, major problem. I contacted my "go-to" person from the ministry and found out that the volunteer church had already packed up their system because they thought we would be using the church's equipment. My "go-to" person said that we did not get permission from the church to use their sound equipment. I admit, I started to freak out. How do you have a quality performance that is dependent on sound without sound? A good friend of mine who was there took me aside and said, "Katie, we need to pray. God has this figured out." She was right. As people were praying, others were on their cell phones pulling out all of the stops to get favors owed to them and ending up owing favors. Central Detroit Christian, the ministry we were partnering with this week, had a Fender portable sound system and 2 mics we could use. That was a good start. I knew though that we would need monitors as well as speakers. That system only had 2 speakers. Kensington Community Church agreed to let us use their portable Fender system as well. Someone actually drove it 40 minutes down to the performance location within minutes of getting permission from KCC. Here's the cool thing-we didn't know that both systems were the same and could work together. When we hooked everything everything up, it worked beautifully.

The kids were excited to perform and as I looked at them fueled up in their seats, ready to go, I realized that what matters the most is being a light to these kids. Giving them an opportunity to grown in Him and encouraging them. I God did that this week. It was His week.

If These Walls Could Speak....

If these walls could speak they would share how loud it was when over 40 middle schoolers walked up 3 flights of double stairs to get to Urban Arts today.

If these walls could speak, they would share the excitement they saw on some faces of kids when they found out what their camp was about this week...and the groans on a few faces when they found out they had to perform.

If these walls could speak, they would share how extremely hot the third floor is without central or unit air.

If these walls could speak, they would share the incredible imagination some of the girls had in drama class when they had to "become" a piano.

If these walls could speak, they would express in amazement the talent some of the boys have when it came to dance class-like standing on their own hands and flipping backwards.

If these walls could speak, they would tearfully share that only a handful of the kids had breakfast and probably would not be getting dinner at home.

If these walls could speak, they would thank the kids in art class for decorating their walls with colorful pieces of art.

If these walls could speak, they would continue singing the songs the voices raised up in their music classes today.

If these walls could speak, they would say they are eagerly awaiting 9am tomorrow morning.

Recap of Urban Arts Camp Week 1

I made it through the first week of Urban Arts camp!:) There are so many things that happened throughout the week that are so amazing, I can't even begin to imagine where I should start. So, i'll be typical and start from the beginning (since most of us follow well in chronological order).

As you may have read from my previous entry, there were some major storms coming across Michigan which stole our power from Sunday through Wed. of the last week. (yes, the first week of camp). The neat thing was that we had power at City Mission in Detroit, where the camp was being held.

Early Monday morning, Renee, Vicky, Kathryn, Wally, Linda and I, piled in two cars with all of our supplies and drove the 48 minutes down to City Mission. We held most of our camp in the City Mission Academy building, but art was special and it got it's own house:)

We had about an hour to set everything up before the kids began showing up. The first day of camp, we had 27 kids. I had set the day up to run on rotations. We all started out together and my parents did the object lesson and devotional. Then the kids were divided into 3 groups based on ages and they rotated to music, drama, art and dance. Lunch was in the middle of the day and we came back together for our "closer" of prayer, a song and announcements. All in all it went pretty smoothly. The youngest class was a handful and we had to adjust and add more volunteers to them.


On Tuesday, we had 30 kids show up for camp! That was the expected number so we were excited that all of them came. Each teacher continued to work on projects and look for those "kids who stood out" to give solos or pair up for routines for the performance. After camp that day, I went over with a City Mission lady, Kathy, to take a look at our Friday performance location. A Detroit middle school was allowing us to use their cafeteria/stage room at no cost. It was my first experience in a Detroit public school. To be honest, I was very sad. There was no air, it was old, and there were airport security stations to walk through...in a middle school. I was aware of the conditions via tv and the news, but to actually walk in a USA school and see the conditions first hand, made me hurt. We found the principal and he was a very kind man. He showed us the area we would be able to use. It really was perfect for the size, stage and area to hold the dinner. There were only a few glitches....no sound equipment, no kitchen, no air. I had some scrambling to do to make this work. It was only the Lord that brought everything together so quickly! A friend took off work on Friday, agreed to drive down from Lansing and provide all of his sound equipment and run it for the performance. We used large fans to give us some circulation and Betty, who volunteered to cater the dinner, adapted the meal so it was "mobile" and didn't need a kitchen. All of that was only God!

Wednesday was a tired day for everyone. You could feel it in the kids when they walked in, I felt it, and other teachers were walking around with coffee cups glued to their fingers:) Everything was still running smoothly though. The dances and songs were coming together well and I was beginning to see some attitude changes for the better. Oh yeah, we had 32 kids that day!

Thursday was crunch day. It was our last day to get everything worked out before the performance. For our closer, we had the kids perform for one another and they loved it! The staff from City Mission even came out from their desks and watched.

Friday was laid out totally differently from the entire week. The kids didn't come to City Mission until 12:30. We transported them a few miles away to the middle school for our dress rehearsal. When we arrived at the school, the kids ate lunch and then we did a blocking run through of the performance. It went pretty well. The kids were pretty hot and tired, but troupers. After our run through we set up stations for them to go to before dinner. A friend brought his electric guitar and pedals and took groups to play around on that and show them stuff. We also had an art station set up to do sand art and a "thank you" card section for the kids to write thank you's to their sponsors. It worked pretty well. After that all happened, I took the entire group out into the hallway and showed them my violin and played a little for them, then let some of them play. It's amazing how quite a group of loud kids can get when they are interested in something. I found that when I was showing them my violin. Dinner was at 5pm..it was a smashing hit of tacos and chips and dip. We were worried that the parents wouldn't come. I think someone from every family showed up to support. That was another answer to prayer. When the kids were done with their meal, we took them out into the hallway and passed out their performance t-shirts. A church had donated them last summer. They were very cute--white t's with stars and glitter on them. The performance started about 6pm. They got a standing ovation! My heart was bursting with pride:) Our team did an amazing job!

And that, my friends was our week in the abridged version. I now begin a whole new week with all new kids tomorrow.

Sista 2 Sista class 1

I just got back from my first evening with 10 awesome middle school girls who live in Detroit. CDC, Central Detroit Christian, has a great program going where dinner is provided, tutors are available, basketball is open court, and different types of classes are offered on each Tuesday night. My friend Renee, who is helping with the Urban Arts, and I volunteered to teach a 7 week class to get these girls interested in the arts. I have to say that they seemed pretty interested, they just had not had the exposure to it. I guess both of the middle schools they came from cut the music and drama programs. So, I started off with explaining pantomime and demonstrating one. We had some fun with that. Then the girls started practicing with me. We played a drama game and then it was Renee's turn to do the music side of it. She warmed them up, explained the importance of correct breathing and we did some fun vocal exercises. She worked on rhythm and introduced a song that we will do for the performance. All in all, it was a good night and flew by! I am praying and hoping that these are some of the girls who can come to the camp this summer.

Sister to Sister

I'm really excited to be a part of the Sister to Sister program at Central Detroit Christian Ministry this April and May. I will be driving to Detroit on Tuesday nights to teach drama and music for middle school kids who live in the city. The classes start April 1st! Keep me in your prayers! I'll keep ya updated on how things are going. This is a volunteer program that will also get my foot in the door for Urban Arts this summer. Exciting!