Young artists help Cancer Society

The artwork of some young artists will be featured on the Cayman Islands Cancer Society’s Christmas cards this year. 

One of the cards, titled “Hope” is by Charli Foster, who at 3, is one of the youngest cancer survivors in Cayman.  

Charli, who is also featured in the Cancer Society’s posters, used coloured pencils to create a Christmas tree for her card. 

Four-year-old Marley Trench also painted a Christmas tree for the Cancer Society, which was impressed by her request for people to send donations to the Cancer Society in lieu of birthday gifts for her this year. 

The third Christmas card in the collection is by friends Saskia Drake, 7, and Sophie Superfine, 6. Earlier this year, they impressed the Cancer Society staff by setting up a lemonade stand and personally brought the proceeds of sales of their lemonade to the Cancer Society “to help the sick people”. Their drawing shows the two girls behind their lemonade stand, being visited by a jolly Santa Claus. 

Jennifer Weber of the Cayman Islands Cancer Society said, “We needed artwork for the cards so we decided to ask the children who inspired us in some special way this year. We thought about the kids who had lemonade stands, donated birthday money, etc., and contacted their parents to ask if they thought their child would like to submit something to be considered for a Christmas card.  

“To us, these children embody the spirit of giving, which is what the holidays are all about, right? So there were seven children in all,” she said. “All the parents loved the idea, so we gave them a few weeks and waited to see what came in.” 

She said some of the children submitted four or five pieces each, “so it was really difficult to choose just a few because they were all so cute in their own way. The board selected the top images, then asked the parents for a picture of their little artist.” 

The cards include a photo of each of the artists and an explanation on why they were chosen. 

Ms Weber said at one point during the exercise, word got out the Cancer Society was collecting artwork and high school students started sending in their art.  

But since those pictures were not holiday themed, they did not work for the Christmas card project.  

“However we were so touched by it all that we decided to create certificates of appreciation for each entrant and we did a prize drawing to give away some vouchers for free pizza at Pizza Hut,” Ms Weber said.  

The Cancer Society is selling 625 packages of 12 cards. Each box of cards cost $12 and contains three varieties.  

All proceeds go to the Cancer society.  

They are available from the Cancer Society office at 114 Maple Road, beside the Cayman Islands Hospital. 

For more details, call 949-7618.