Jack Harris, a fourth-year animation student at Ringling College, held an impactful art workshop for the children living at the Campus of Hope & Healing. The concepts of empathy and compassion served as prompts to begin painting and drawing anything that came to mind. This workshop would serve as the first phase and a crucial component of Jack’s senior thesis project, a large-scale mural installation in the Rosemary district.

Jack first approached Stephen Fancher, Chief Advancement Office at All Star with the intention to highlight the children and campus, and to keep his connection to something he held dear.

“We have been a foster family since I was six years old, and for the past several years, my parents have been mentors in our local system to help and prepare new foster care families,” said Jack. “The Foster Care system is very important to me because of all that, so when I moved away from home to go to school over a thousand miles away, I wanted to keep some sort of connection to something I knew, and I found that connection by working with All Star.”

Jack explained, “When people see the mural, I want them to see All-Star and everything the organization represents. The shooting star represents the wishes, dreams, and hopes the organization promotes while it’s fueled by the compassion of the kids behind it all.”

In a heartwarming twist, incoming freshmen from the Ringling Lazarus program engaged in a day of service also joined the event. The AtLarge building became a center of creativity and connection as students immersed themselves in painting and conversation around the foster system and their various touchpoints and time spent volunteering. The completed artwork, featuring images of interlinked hands and joyful children, stood as a testament to the profound impact of the workshop.

“All of the kid’s creativity was essential,” Jack explained. “I want the viewers of the mural to see that. To see not just the compassion, but the heart of it all and how important it is to express it.”