As this year draws to a close and our annual fundraising campaign begins, Lisa and I have reflected upon what a challenging and difficult year it has been. This year has been like no other we have experienced and has required that everyone here at VisArts dig deep, work harder than ever before, and be ready to pivot on a moment's notice.

The saying that the only constant thing in life is change has never been truer. Forced to close with only a day's notice, we have worked tirelessly to find ways to keep our ceramics program going for our wonderful students and teachers. We scrambled to figure out how to offer online classes and how to get clay to our students. We began a wheel rental program and arranged for work to be fired. While most programming at VisArts came to a stand-still, our ceramic students and teachers would not let our program end with a whimper!

We were touched and overwhelmed by how many of our students did not take the refunds they were owed due to cancellations and asked that we use that money to pay our instructors. The pandemic has given us far too many examples of selfish and self-centered behavior, but our students' generosity and our teachers' commitment to continuing have illustrated what is best about a community when it comes together. We are proud of the fact that our program not only survived this year, but that it has thrived despite all of the challenges. 

We are proud that, despite the decrease in revenues to VisArts, we found ways to serve our greater community by offering free outdoor art experiences, funding full scholarships for students who needed to be in a safe place while their parents worked, and raising money for Manna Food Bank and the KIND food distribution program to MCPS students. We worked with County Councilperson Will Jawando to offer art activities to accompany his daily reading program for small children, and offered free art videos so that people could continue to create during the lock-down.

Despite all of our accomplishments to serve our community during the past year, we would be lying if we said that the pandemic has not hurt our organization financially. Income from classes, camps, and event rentals has been dramatically reduced. We were unable to run our annual Arts Festival in May, and our annual spring fundraising event had to be cancelled. All of these things have challenged our organization as never before. 

So we come to you to ask you to think about what VisArts means to you. There are many wonderful and important organizations doing important and necessary work that need and deserve our support, but making sure that VisArts continues to exist and thrive is deserving of your support as well. Now, more than ever, we all need to be inspired by what we and others can create with our minds and our hands.  

Please help us make sure that VisArts is still here to serve you and others by donating to our year-end campaign today. As always, Lisa and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support of the place that we love so much.

Thanks so much.

Karen and Lisa