Category: Bishop Gibbons

Well, I planned to post the Emergency Amazon Food and Snacks Wish List today and also tomorrow. The Army of Good is so generous and responsive – so good – I sometimes underestimate it.

When I visited Sue Silverstein last week, I learned that more children than ever were showing up for their art classes hungry. Their families can’t keep up with the rising food prices, and they are cutting back on their meals and quantities. Sue said she had not, in nearly four decades of teaching, seen so many students looking for help with food and energy.

Some families were skipping a meal every day.

I posted the request for the Emergency Amazon Food and Energy snacks around 9 a.m. this morning.

A little after 10 a.m., it was all gone. My apologies to the people who complain that they never had a chance to support these lists. Spreading them out over two days would allow everyone to participate more effectively. The Army of Good never dallies and never fails – and never waits for others.

Thanks to Maria for noticing the students coming into the classroom hungry, and thanks to Sue Silverstein for letting me help.

Thanks for the thousandth time for the Army of Good. You keep hope and kindness alive.

More students than ever before are coming to their teachers to get some snacks and energy foods. They can’t afford the rising cost of food.  The teachers are buying them with their own money, and teachers don’t make a lot of money. The Emergency Amazon Food Wish List for Bishop Gibbons is now available. Please help if you can.

Art Teacher Sue Silverstein has chosen 26 snacks and dried food lunches. She’ll get them this week. It felt like an emergency to me. I appreciate that we didn’t keep these kids waiting for this food.

The students need energy snacks, but they also need rice cups, chicken noodle soup, Cinnamon brown crunchy bites, KIND energy bars, Chewy Granola Bars, Fruit Snacks, Maruchan Instant Lunch @Spicy Chicken, Fruit Spread, Peanut Butter, Microwave Mac and Cheese, Granola Bars, Breakfast Nutrition Bars, Instant lunch foods, Oatmeal Express Cups, Mac & Cheese, among others.

They are all sold out; they are on the way.

The school teachers have been buying food and snacks, but they don’t make a lot of money. I hope we have provided the kids with the food they urgently need, and that teachers can afford to keep buying it. If not, we’ll come back again.

The students report that their families can’t afford the prices in supermarkets right now, and many get only two meals a day, needing food and energy snacks to get through their active days.

You can access the Emergency Bishop Gibbons Wish List here.

Sue and I posted several Wish Lists for her students at Bishop Gibbons High School during the pandemic. She stores these food supplies in a safe and healthy location and distributes them as needed.

She always finds the right energy foods and snacks that students can eat quickly and safely.

This is God’s work for me. I’ve seen these kids close up, and they are eager and ready to learn, but they need some help with a strong and healthy diet. Sue will make sure they get what they need, and you will have made that possible.

You are keeping good alive.

Sue Silvestein’s already famous art program at Bishop Gibbons High School in Schenectady, Neew York, has a day called Splash Day for her art students.

“We threw rocks into puddles,” she says, “and the kids tried to take photos of the splash as it happened. Of course, then they started skipping rocks, too. We tried dropping marbles into the water, but the rocks worked better.”

I’m in awe of Sue’s innovative ideas; they transform art into a realm of imagination and intuition, igniting the creative spark in the young time and again. This is one of the rare activities in her 80-student art program that isn’t crafted from donated and discarded objects from the generous Army of Good.

Sue is what saints are made of; she has a column on my blog now, usually on Thursday or Friday. Could you check it out? If you have any discarded or forgotten objects, from hats to jewelry to children’s toys to wood, her young artists will turn them into art.

Thanks to your donations, art lives and thrives at Bishop Gibbons and helps Sue turn scores of kids from Tik-Tok to their innate creativity.

You can donate almost any discarded object to Sue Silverstein, Bishop Gibbons High School, 2600 Albany Street, Schenectady, New York, 12304.

Sue Silverstein, the art and community teacher at Bishop Gibbons High School,  is one of the most admirable and remarkable humans I know. Instead of writing about her and her lucky art students every week, I decided to let her do it weekly. I invited her to write a column about the donations she’s received and the students she has inspired right here.

Starting Monday, she’ll become the second person besides me to have a column on Bedlamfarm.com (Maria was the first). Watching Sue’s artwork with the young explode is a joy for me, for Maria, and for many of our readers. It lifts the heart.

Thanks to the weekly donations from the Army Of Good, Sue has been able to create an exceptional art program for her students. She’s eager to share the impact of these donations and the progress of her students with you. Your support is truly making an enormous difference.

Sue moved from Bishop McGinn to Bishop Gibbons last year. It’s a longer trek, and I’m swamped with other work.

Maria and I plan to visit Sue and her students at least once a month, and I will continue writing about them,  but she and I would like the donors of the work that makes her artwork possible on the blog every week. I’m very excited about this, and she is too. She will be posting her column weekly to give the good people who send her materials a look at what their generosity has accomplished.

Every work of art her students create comes from recycled and discarded materials lying around in drawers, garages, attics, and basements, which were sent by blog readers.

Her inspiring art has pulled young people off social media and into her magical classroom. She’ll tell you all about it, and so will I. Meeting Sue and becoming a friend is one of the best experiences of my life.

She is a fantastic teacher. In a time when many schools are dropping their art classes to save money, she has re-imagined art instruction in a visible and almost shockingly exciting way. I love praising her and her work, but she loves doing that, too, and she can describe it better than I can. I am proud to have my great Sue, a regular contributor to Bedlamfarm.com, which I am always looking to expand and improve.

I rarely give this space away to anyone but me. I’m happy to do it with Sue. She is the best person I know from my Willa Cather, wife.

Sue’s first column will appear here next Monday. Sue has helped thousands of young people, including recently arrived refugees from all over the world, achieve their ambitions and potential. She is a saint waiting for anointment. I’m happy she’ll be writing here and sharing the remarkable experience that is her art project.

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Thanks to people in the area who have already dropped off yarn for Sue Silverstein and her red-hot art program. She sent some students off with chalk to draw in the sun; the results were wonderful (above).  Student JaZelle also did the painting below. Sue is pushing all the right buttons, and a wave of creativity is coming right back at her.

If you have any yarn to spar, please consider sending it to Sue Silverstein, Bishop Gibbons High School, 2600 Albany Street, Schenectady, N.Y., 12304. Thanks. Sue is a genius at bringing out her students’ natural creativity and using old and discarded objects as art. They are doing amazing work.

Sue has always needed acrylic paintbrushes and canvases. I sent her some of those things every month, but her students are too far away. She says the girls are going crazy for yarn projects. We’re on it.

Sue Silverstein’s art class at Bishop Gibbons High School in Schenectady, New York, is doing amazing mixed-media painting using the supplies and patterns you sent them. Sue’s head is already on the next thing.

Sue rarely asks for help, but I got a message from her today seeking assistance:

“Can you ask if anyone has yarn they don’t need? I suddenly have a bunch of girls going through it like crazy.”   I’m on it, Sue. You and your students are magicians; you know how to turn other people’s junk into beautiful art. Look out, Tik Tok.

She’s also looking for used or discarded rolled-up window shades. If you have any extra yard to spare (or window shades), please consider sending them to Sue Silverstein, Bishop Gibbons High School, 2600 Albany Street, Schenectady, New York, 12304.

The Army of Good has sent just about every tool and supply and discarded things that Sue, with her magic, has turned into art. I can’t wait to see what they do with the yarn you send them.  Sue is making history with her 80-pupil program and the enthusiasm and talent it has unleashed and inspired. Thank you all so much.

We are changing and shaping lives and unleashing the creative sparks in all of us.