About Our Grant


SME won a Mississippi Arts Commission grant to host an twelve-week art workshop for our Explorers Club children (ages three to eighteen). The workshop will study Mississippi Artists and the children will create their own artwork in the styles of the artists studied. Explorers will study artists related thematically in the following categories: 

  • Art as a Healing Tool
  • Art as Zest of the Quotidian
  • Art as Reflection on the Created Order
  • Art as Encountering God
  • Art as Catalyst for Change
  • Art as Community Builder
 

The Workshop began in August 2025 and will conclude in May 2026.

Learn More About the Explorers Club

Art as a Healing Tool

August 21st, August 28th, and September 11th

Main Idea: Children will learn how art can be used to comfort and heal ourselves and others, helping us to understand and to process both joy and pain. After a trauma, we can use what is broken to create something new.

Featured Mississippi Artist: Children studied the art of Meredith Gonzales-Fernandez and Ravin Hill Lovett who use their art to heal others. They studied card-making artists Jill McDonnell and Yolande Van Heerden (tomboy ART). Additionally, they studied arts-based community response to trauma by examining the chainsaw art of Dayton Scoggins and by visiting the Waveland Ground Zero Museum.

Featured Project: Children created hand-drawn and painted spiritual bouquet cards with well wishes and prayers inscribed on the reverse. These cards were delivered to the sailors and truckers of the XX Ministry.

This Workshop was made possible...

in part by funding from the Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC), a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federal agency. 

SME would like to thank to our US Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith & Roger Wicker and US House Representative Mike Ezell for their support of the NEA without which this Workshop would not be possible. 

We would also like to thank our MS legislators for their support of MAC: Senators DeLano, England, Wiggins, Seymour, Carter, Thompson, & Ladner; and Representatives Read, Zuber, Guice, Grady, Felsher, Haney, Halum, Bennett, Crawford, Eure, & Estrade. Support for the arts makes all the difference for a brighter MS future! 

Thank you to all the MAC Commissioners, especially our local Gulf Coast Commissioners: Mr. Frank Bordeaux, Mr. Scott Naugle, and Mrs. Marie Sanderson! 

A big thank you also goes to St. Michael Catholic Church for supporting the children of Stella Maris Explorers every week by donating the use of the Family Life Center: Msgr. Dominick Fullam, Mrs. Susan Pizzetta, and Mrs. Jessica Gollott. Your support is invaluable to our mission. Additional thanks go to the Diocese of Biloxi and Bishop Kihneman for allowing catholic homeschooling to flourish in Biloxi. 

And lastly, thank you to the 100% volunteer SME team. Notably the granting writing team: Mrs. Mallory Carey, Ms. Mary Easterling, Mrs. Ashley Rodriguez, and Mrs. Lorelei Worland; and the lead art instructor: Mrs. Nicole Webb. Without their hard work this grant would never materialized.