Happy Holidays! Here is a C3A look back for 2018:

We continue to see the Coatesville area as a laboratory, the core of a global community strategy - spokes radiating out from the amazing melting pot of this City and the beautiful ring of green around it - the physical environment and the people. A crucial part of that radiating power has been Let's Get Dirty! Learn to Love Organic Gardening wellness programs - one of the best community builders we've been fortunate enough to discover through the trial and error of C3A's last 17 years, as well as the more than four decades of collaboration between Greg and Deb. This is surprising, since one might expect more culturally-oriented C3A projects such as music and film festivals, business/art expos, art exhibitions, and school district celebrations would have worked first. So we're delighted about this, this umbrella of knowledge which glues people of all ages, backgrounds, job descriptions, and viewpoints together - Deb's own concept after decades of gardening, knowledge-building, public speaking, and tapping Mother Nature's wisdom. Connective tissues grow organically, and in fact Art is one of Mother Nature's offspring - she shows us how to be creative as well as destructive. See Deb's PhillyFit magazine article here - https://issuu.com/phillyfit/docs/pfsept18_nocrops___1_/24

At the Coatesville Veterans Administration Medical Center, C3A continues with art and gardening therapy programs using peer group counseling. Upcoming is the Tree of Life collective art piece, to represent family and community from the top leaves all the way down to the roots and the dirt - to help all of us focus on where we've come from and where we're still going in life - a very intense experience for many veterans. We give much credit to the compassionate, dedicated people we work with who do this every day and glue the V.A. campus together - a model to replicate and expand on. For 50 years since he was drafted and served for two years, Greg has been working on a way to honor and elevate veterans and spotlight a national approach to rectify the wrongs done to them, in a way that all citizens can buy into. This is "The SOUL Project" (Support Our Uncelebrated Leaders): To relieve by sharing the burden, appreciating caregivers, and helping veterans become whole again. We are working on the details right now to make it a game changer in the way society respects and honors the service and sacrifice of the best and the brightest of every generation.

These challenging climate times can encourage believers and skeptics alike to adapt and grow into the future and watch out for each other. Seeds, food, talk, listening, lines, and paint - a marketplace of positive ideas.