State-wide YAM Celebration

Many teachers, students and their family and friends made the trip to Trenton on a snowy day to view the New Jersey State Youth Art Month exhibit on March 7th. Six pieces of artwork from each county in NJ were selected to be on exhibit by a county YAM committee.
The High School reception was held in the afternoon for all participating 9th to 12th grade students and their teachers and families. At this reception, Lisa Dinhofer, a local artist, shared her experience as an artist and showed slides of her artwork to the students. The students were definitely inspired after seeing Lisa's work. Dale Schmid, the State Coordinator of Visual & Performing Arts, also joined in on the YAM festivities by reading the names of the participating students. Debbie Greh, AENJ Communications Chair, awarded each student with a special YAM Certificate and a black YAM T-Shirt, as Laura Petrovich-Cheney, AENJ Vice-President, photographed the event. Yummy sandwiches and refreshments were enjoyed before the students went back to school.

In the evening, we highlighted our elementary and middle school students in grades K-8. The committee room was packed with families and students in spite of the wintery weather. Carrie Davey, AENJ Advocacy Chair, read the names of the participating students as Susan Bivona, AENJ President, and Linda Devlin, AENJ President-Elect, handed out certificates. Next, the student moved on to our photography station, where Debbie Greh photographed each county group. Finally, the students moved on to our t-shirt station, where Nancy Knutsen, AENJ Historian, and Barbara Calvo, AENJ Membership Chair, helped hand out special teal colored YAM T-Shirts to each student artist. We had the honor of having Dale Schmid attend our evening festivities as well! After the awards, all attendees grabbed some more refreshments and took some more pictures of the artwork before heading home. It was a wonderful and joyous event for all!

Next year's NJ State YAM celebration will take place on Friday, March 14th. To view this year's State YAM artwork, go to www.artsonia.com/schools/aenj1