How Does Willowing Arts Support Others?
At Willowing Arts, we are always keen to help those in need in any way that we are able. This has included fundraising for charities and offering course scholarships to those without the means to participate. Here you can see how Willowing has supported some wonderful causes in recent years. If you have a charity, cause or anything worthwhile you’d like us to consider, please do get in touch with us.
Treesisters
Treesisters helps to tackle the increasing devastation of deforestation around the world. Thousands of women come together financially to help reforest the planet through tree planting and sowing.
Treesisters’ message:
“TreeSisters exists to elicit collective responsibility for planetary restoration at the grass roots level with a focus on women and tropical reforestation. We are growing a global network of women who donate monthly to fund the acceleration of tropical reforestation as an expression of collective planetary care.”
In 2019, Willowing.org supported Treesisters in raising £25,000 to help their very worthwhile cause through our Art for Earth course.
Charity Water
A charity built up by one man who saw the strife that affected millions of impoverished villages around the world due to lack of water. The long travels required every day by these communities and the dangers of those journeys, as well as the need for clean water, inspired Scott Harrison to take dramatic action and create a dedicated charity to help as many of those affected as possible.
Chairty Water’s message:
“785 million people lack basic access to clean and safe drinking water. We’re on a mission to change that.“
Willowing.org has supported Charity Water in raising £15,000 to help end the plight of the millions living in these desperate conditions.
Kiva
Kiva is a very interesting non-profit organisation. They aim to help small business entrepreneurs around the world who do not have access to the financial institutions required to get their projects started. Kiva take loans given from companies like Willowing and funnel them to people in need – from bean farmers in South America to daycare centre’s in Africa.
Kiva’s message:
“More than 1.7 billion people around the world are unbanked and can’t access the financial services they need. Kiva is an international nonprofit, founded in 2005 in San Francisco, with a mission to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive.“
Willowing.org lent support to Kiva by offering up a £3000 loan to help someone else start up their own small company.
Number of Scholarships Awarded to-date:
Willowing Arts Philanthropy – Scholarship Stories
Each year, when the new course goes on sale, we take nominations and give out a certain number of courses as scholarships to those who are very deserving. We also have several generous donors, who donate toward us offering these scholarships, for which we are very grateful, as are the recipients of the scholarships. The generosity of donors enables us to give away many more scholarship places than we otherwise would be able to, and the donations are warmly received by the lucky recipients. We send a huge thank you out to every single person who has been kind enough to donate to our scholarships over the years.
Read on to take a look at some of our lovely scholarship stories.
Beautiful Charity Story
ORIKALANKINI
We recently received information on a charity in India that supports women in economically challenging situations as well as raising awareness around mensuration and sexuality in impoverished sections of Indian society. Running since 2013, the mission statement for Orikalankini is as follows:
“WE ARE AN ORGANISATION THAT IS CHANGING NARRATIVES AROUND MENSTRUATION AND SEXUALITY IN INDIA THROUGH ART, THEATRE AND DIALOGUE SINCE 2013”
We send our thanks to Dr Sneha Rooh, pain and palliative physician and founder of Orikalankini. Dr Rooh has made Life Book 2020 available in the creative sessions for the many Indian women and girls that she helps.
More information on this incredible charity can be found here:
Wonderful Teacher Tale
Highlands High School
In 2020 we received an application from a wonderful Art teacher in Pennsylvania who was applying on behalf of her 15 students. The school was in a particularly deprived, rural area and so she thought that they could really benefit from some of Tam’s classes.
We also helped to promote her fundraiser on DonorsChoose.org for supplies for her students and thankfully she made her target! Yay!
We presented the students with a Life Book 2020 scholarship and received some lovely photos from Teresa that made our hearts leap.
Individual Recipient Responses
“I could not believe my eyes when I opened my mail and received this great mail from you.
I am completely overwhelmed and so lucky to be able to participate in Life Book 2021. I am so grateful for this opportunity.
I really did not expect this. Thank you very much for this. I can’t wait until January 1 and we can start.”
– Christel, Netherlands
“OMGOSH!!!!!!!! WOWWWWWWW !!! I am SO incredibly happy !!!! Thank you from the bottom of my heart – I am so flipping happy right now I could burst!”
– Lori, USA
“OH MY GOODNESS!! I can’t believe it, thank you, oh wow! I had to read it a few times for it to register!
Now I really feel the universe is finally smiling upon me.
Cant wait to get started! Thanks again for the love!”
– Sandhia, South Africa
“With great surprise and gratitude, it is an absolute honor to be chosen asa scholarship recipient for Life Book 2021 Scholarship! To be instructed in art by the participating artists is thrilling. The workI do with the military, hospitals, nursing homes, our local adult daycare home, the Veterans Home, the homeless and with local youth will be enhanced by learning these skills. My goal, beyond teaching art to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, is to teach art to others. Thank you very much for your gift. To the lovely person who donated funds for a scholarship, I am very grateful and touched by their kindness.”
– Carolyn, USA
“I can’t believe that I won this scholarship for LB2021! I’m in complete awe and tears of joy are trickling down my face. I don’t even know how to begin to thank all of you for this amazing opportunity and I’m looking forward to growing personally. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!💖💖💖🥰 Much love to you, Tam and everyone involved in this adventure that I’m about to begin.”
– Renée, USA
“Thank you so so much ! So overwhelmed by your generosity, I actually cried my eyes out when I heard you had awarded me the scholarship. Nice things don’t happen to me, ever. Having something to look forward to in the new year is absolute magic. Your kindness has touched my heart… It’s so wonderful to have something special for ME! Thank you all so so so much, I have something to look forward to”
– Louise, UK
Interested in becoming a donor?
If you would like to support those without means to access the arts through Willowing.org’s scholarship scheme, then your donations are always welcome. Those to whom it goes are extremely grateful and would never otherwise have access to classes like these. Your donations enable us to give away far more than we would be able to without your help.
Please complete the form below if you’re interested in supporting us in any way. We welcome your messages:
