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It’s been approximately 6 months since I started my internship here at The LAB.  I have worked my way through many cycles of immense gratitude, appreciation for the staff/volunteers who are teaching me so much, sadness regarding the challenges our students face every day, awe at their resiliency, an overwhelming sense of being completely unable to do enough, and determination to move forward in ways that put faces to our mission.

I’m smiling now (and admittedly, a little teary) as I think about those faces……..the smiles from a previously shut-down 14 year old, the “all right Leann……I’ll see you next time” that accompanied a hand shake from a student who reportedly had a hard time building relationships…..   Read more

Me and Only Me

I come here to show people what I can do and what I have to say.
I come here to be me and only me.

I come here to be myself
I come here to be someone

I come here to express myself
I come here to be all I can be

I come here to make something out of my thoughts
and write them down on paper

I come here to be my best and
to say that I have no fear of what comes near.

I have been volunteering at The Lab for over a year now, working with kids that are thought of as being difficult but who, in reality, are just like all other kids, full of dreams, playfulness and enthusiasm. When I started at The Lab, I volunteered with the Morning Enrichment groups, working mostly with the visual arts group. In this group, the youth learn how to create neat projects like mosaics, self-portraits, journal/book-making and more, while opening up to each other and to the volunteers and interns.

I love the change that takes place from when these youth first walk into the Lab to the moment they leave to go back to school. When they get in, they have heavy feet and are low on energy. During the groups, they lighten up and turn into total kids, exploring their creative and artistic sides, even if at first they thought they could not do it! By the time they leave the classroom to go back to school, they are carrying with them their final projects, whether this is in their hands or in their minds! I love that transformation, because they stop being “EBD kids” for a minute, and turn into just kids… Read more

Next week, our students at The Lab will be lucky to see shows by spoken word poet, performer and musician, Desdamona — and beatboxer, poet, performer, Carnage the Executioner!

These two performers have been working with us at the Lab for several years, and we are grateful for their inspiration and ability to work with Lab students in our Enrichment program.  They will work with students in writing groups and encourage students to put their own stories into poetry, both for the page, and for the stage.

What Matters, by Josh
What matters to me is to be successful
Less stressful, To be determined, to unleash the emotion without fear
Because if I do, rage is the next stage and I’m not trying to let that out of the cage
So I think uncertain thoughts, Pondering around in my mind
Trying to examine what’s the next line
How controlling it will be
My thoughts, and the inner me.

I have been inspired (and affirmed) by several cool programs doing wonderfully creative work in the Twin Cities and I thought my blog would be a good place to give a shout out to them.  Every time I see another organizations putting art in the heart of their work with youth, it affirms to me that we are doing a good thing at The Lab.  As it says in the tag line of Free Arts Minnesota, Art Heals.  Indeed.

Read on to check out these cool organizations.  Maybe you will find yourself volunteering at The Lab, or one of these other great organizations.  You will be among those people working to make a difference with art at the heart.   Read more

So I wait by the door to the entrance of the building for one of the youth that I will be working with for the day in either the Recording Studio or the Writer’s Lab and I am thinking to myself,

Wow, today is another chance to bring the best out of him/her; Today is another opportunity for me to help them discover that they have so much more inside of them even than the poem that they are writing or the rap that they are saying over the mic.

With that train of thought, as I see their smile for the first time that day, I know it won’t be the last because I will use this time to encourage, uplift and esteem this expression of talent.   Read more

Check out this poem!  It was written and recorded by a student who goes by Top Cat.  Top Cat works with Glo in the recording studio once a week, writing and recording cool stuff.  Enjoy.

Click on the poem “Rest In Peace” in blue below to hear this poem.
It was written and recorded at The Lab by students from W. 7th, along with Glo, our recording guru/mentor!

Blogger – Marilou, Lab Mentor/Volunteer:

I have always considered myself “navigationally impaired” and one who always gets lost and needs turn by turn directions. Don’t tell me to head east or west. Tell me turn left or right. Tell me landmarks. This morning as I was doing some research on the North Star as I work on developing more lesson plans for the animal assisted education work that Ahnung and I are doing at The Lab.
(Pictured above  - Marilou, Lab mentor & her therapy dog, Ahnung) Read more

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