January 26, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Hope floats

by Alexandria Rocha

Eighth-grader Jasmine Perry posed her pencil above a sheet of paper last week and thought for a moment about her biggest goal.

After another short pause, she wrote it down. "I want to be a pediatrician." And to get there, she would "do good in high school, study hard and go to college."

Perry, 14, was one of more than two dozen students from the San Francisco 49er Academy in East Palo Alto who participated last week in an exclusive after-school art session hosted by the non-profit organization, Portraits of Hope.

The students' goals were used as a launching off point for the larger project -- to help hand paint one of the nation's largest blimps, the Ameriquest Soaring Dreams Airship.

"The key to this particular program is for the kids to dream big," said Ed Massey, Portraits of Hope founder. "When it's on a television show or a news clip, the kids will see it and be able to say they did it."

Students from the 49er Academy, who represented just one of the 70 schools and hospitals from states in the Southwest, will have their artwork showcased on the airship, which is five times the size of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. After the blimp debuts in Southern California this spring, it will then broadcast the Oakland Athletics games this baseball season.

The project, which is the third of its kind, is a sponsorship between Portraits of Hope, a nonprofit art therapy organization, and Ameriquest Mortgage.

"No dream is too big. Don't let anyone ever tell you that you can't do something," said Portraits of Hope Program Director Chaya Greisman, who was smaller than most of the students, but delivered her message with a loud and clear voice.

"This is not just any blimp. This is the biggest blimp in the world. Imagine that! Our dreams can soar if we work hard," she added.

The airship project involved more than 6,000 children, from Arlington, Texas to Albuquerque, N.M. to East Palo Alto. The children from each site painted different shaped "panels" -- the largest being a 65-by-65 foot square -- which will eventually be mounted onto the blimp. The 49er Academy students painted a 20-by-20 foot panel light blue.

"We work with a lot of after-school programs and disadvantaged youth," said Susan Nassberg, a spokeswoman for Portraits of Hope. "It's important to show kids, that regardless of the situation they're in, they can accomplish the impossible and they're a part of something other kids aren't doing, a part of something special."

A traveling team of six Portrait of Hope artists began visiting the sites in August, shuttling the huge panels to each location. The 49er Academy was the group's 63rd stop.

After writing down their goals, each student was armed with a paint brush and a small cup of light blue paint. They crowded around the panel and finished painting in just a few minutes.

Davion Douglas, 11, wearing a baggy T-shirt over his school clothes so they wouldn't get damaged, continued to put the finishing touches on one corner of the panel. The sixth-grader paints and draws regularly in his personal art book.

"You can come up with any creation while you think," he said. "This is a good project because all the kids are putting their effort into it." The first Portraits of Hope project was the Tower of Hope in Los Angeles -- which is taller than the Statue of Liberty -- painted by thousands of hospitalized children and their families. The second was done in conjunction with NASA and the First Flight Centennial Celebration. This time, the children involved painted a DC-3 sport plane from the 1930s.

A fourth project -- to be tackled after the blimp -- involves the tops of more than 10,000 New York City taxi cabs.

The students at the 49er Academy signed their names around the panel and Portraits of Hope quickly packed up to head toward their next location.

What the students didn't know, however, is that a panel of judges from Ameriquest Mortgage plans to review the goals and select a few of the best responses. The kids chosen will get to ride in the Soaring Dreams Airship when it flies over the Bay Area.

For more information, visit www.soaringdreams.org.

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