MERRIAM, Kan. — A local nonprofit, SevenDays, is looking for high school artists to design its 10th anniversary buttons and stickers for its annual events in the spring of 2024.
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The button design competition is all about incorporating kindness through art.
Mindy Corporon is the co-founder of SevenDays. The nonprofit was created after her son, Reat, and her father, William, were murdered in April of 2014 during a mass shooting, which took the lives of three people.
The mass shooting happened outside the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom in Overland Park, Kansas.
The organization's mission for nearly ten years is overcoming hate by promoting kindness and understanding through education and dialogue, and a part of that is a visual representation of what kindness means.
Youth Engagement Director Jill Andersen said this is where the button competition part comes in.
"We want them to think about kindness. We want them to spend time with positivity in their minds and then coming out of their creativity," Andersen said. "We're really excited about the kindness art button competition and the opportunity that kids have to express that kindness and hopefully be ripples of kindness through their art."
Andersen says the ten year anniversary is going to be very special.
"We are planning our two events: our kindness breakfast and our kindness festival is a new event this year and we're very excited about that," she said. "It is going to really hopefully bring the community together. It's back at the Jewish community Center this year so that will be a wonderful kind of tribute to people we lost and hope for moving forward."
While the events aren't until the spring,applications are being accepted now through Dec. 15th.
"Kindness is important for everybody but when you are a teenager, you're starting to change who you are, you're looking around the world instead of internally and when you start to have positivity around you instead of negativity, you behave that way," Andersen said. "Getting kids to think about kindness in any way possible and art is just one of those avenues ...and is our way to help that positivity continue, being that ripple."
Here are the competition details:
- High school students (grades 9-12) in the Kansas City-metro area are eligible to participate.
- The deadline for all submissions is 11:59 p.m. CST on Friday, Dec. 15.
- All applications must be submitted online.
- Each artist must turn in artwork for each of the eight button designs, including one button for each of the themed days and one button for SevenDays' “general” button.
- $500 will be awarded to each of the eight winners.
One of last year's winners, Kayla Gele, drew butterflies. Her art won the overall SevenDays button. Gele didn't know Corporon had a connection with butterflies. Corporon says every time she sees a yellow butterfly, she feels her son, Reat, is with her.
"It blew my mind. I know that everyone can make a difference in the world and bring others joy like that, but I didn't expect it from me and it touched my heart, honestly," Gele said. "Every time I look at it, that's what I think about. I don't really think about, 'Oh it's pretty,' or stuff like that, I think about what it did for her and what it can do for others."
Gele said she will remember that for the rest of her life.
Andersen says there's another competition happening specifically for graduating high school seniors.
"Whatever they see that is a need in their community, we want them to make an impact, make a ripple and when they do that kindness activity , tell us about it," Andersen said. "So they write an essay, send us pictures or videos and we are awarding up to ten $1000 scholarships for anyone that is graduating from high school and doing some sort of education.
Andersen says seniors do not have to be attending a four year university to apply.
"It could be a trade school, it could be junior college, whatever it is, we want to help them with their journey forward by awarding them money to help," Andersen said. "These are kids that we know are going to be the future of Kansas City and we want them to start by making some sort of an impact in Kansas City."
To learn more about SevenDays and its mission, click here.
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