By Arabella Saunders, Features Editor

Scrolling through your camera roll, imagine all the pictures of yourself you come across. Pictures with your family, funny pictures of you and your friends, pictures from homecoming and prom and the tailgate before the football game.

For thousands of children around the world, pictures like this will never exist. In an effort to preserve the youth of 14 orphaned children from a small village in Colombia, First Flight’s Art III students have teamed with The Memory Project to create unique and meaningful Christmas gifts.

The Memory Project is a non-profit organization that allows artists to create portraits of children from around the world who have experienced abuse, neglect, loss of parents, extreme poverty and other challenges.

“The purpose of The Memory Project is to make a meaningful piece of history to make children feel loved and to show that more people other than the ones in their surrounding area care about them,” art teacher Alice Baldwin said. “They get to see themselves through a piece of artwork and as they grow, it’s something they keep a hold of.”

Baldwin was first introduced to The Memory Project four years ago while student-teaching at Manteo High School. While sorting through her mail, she came across a pamphlet from the organization and realized the project would be a meaningful way to expand on her students’ artistic abilities.

“I had a chance of teaching the upper levels this year and knew that there was a class that would absolutely fit with it, and that was Art III,” Baldwin said. “They needed an opportunity to work with colored pencils, Prismacolors, in a realistic way, and it fit right in.”

The task of creating the portraits was originally presented as a choice, but the class’ unanimous agreement to participate reinforced Baldwin’s belief that Art III was the perfect group to tackle the project.

“They were really excited when the pictures came in so they could actually see the children they were going to draw,” Baldwin said. “I was just excited about all of it.”

In order to ensure fairness, the students blindly chose their subjects, and were also encouraged to employ all the techniques they had been taught regarding Prismacolors. Creating the portrait of a child was a daunting task.

“I was very nervous,” junior Lauren Kerlin said. “The hardest part was definitely making the portrait look as realistic as possible. Children don’t have much form in their face, so you really had to work well with highlights and shadows to make it look not just like a blob of skin color.”

Despite the initial hesitation, the artists quickly grew to love the project and the meaning behind it.

“I was glad that she chose our class so I could be part of it,” junior Maddie Ball said. “I think it’s a real good feeling for them because they get something of their own. Especially the kids that have gone through neglect, just to know that somebody cares and has created this for them.”

Between spending whole class periods blending various shades of colored pencils to create the perfect skin tone to late nights perfecting intricate facial details, junior Jeremiah Derby felt that the project has fostered a special bond between himself and the child.

“Artistically, I learned just to focus on the small things like how far should the cheekbone be or how dark you should shade,” Derby said. “But morally, I’d say just being able to create a bond with someone really far away and give them something special was really cool.”

In addition to supplying art teachers with a digital and hard copy of each child’s photo, name and their favorite color, The Memory Project records each delivery and sends the videos back to the artists.

“I am so excited to see the video,” Kerlin said. “When we finished the project I made sure to ask Mrs. B that we would get a video of our kids receiving their portraits. I just wanna pick out little Juan David and make sure he likes it.”

The touching video was shared with the whole school on the Friday before Christmas break. While the students were thrilled to see the children’s reactions, the project also left a lasting impact on how they can use their skills to benefit others. And Baldwin has been inspired to make the project an annual tradition.

“I think it helped the students realize there are less-fortunate people in the world and anything you have that is a skill that you could lend to someone is great,” she said. “And it was so nice to see them use their artistic skill to make someone else feel good.”

Junior Arabella Saunders can be reached at saundersar0214@daretolearn.org.