The School of Public Affairs' Leadership Program's Homelessness Group organized an art show of paintings and poetry readings created by participants in an after-breakfast program at a local soup kitchen.
Miriam's Kitchen provides a program every day after breakfast with activities such as painting, poetry, creative writing and yoga, according to its brochure.
Katie Myers, a freshman in SPA, said each group in the SPA program had a community service project. Her group went to the shelter before the show to visit the artists in the program, she said.
"When I went it was so much fun," she said. "The artists are really amazing, and it was so much fun just talking to them."
The theme of the show was "Perspectives of D.C." Homeless participants in the after-breakfast program painted pictures specifically for the show's theme, displaying streets, park scenes and more abstract representations of the city.
"They chose to work on pieces for the show or not, and then when I visited I spoke to a few of the artists and asked if they were working on anything for the show, and they all were," Myers said. "They were really excited about it."
Besides organizing the show, the group collected toiletries for the shelter, she said.
Larry Mitchell, a participant in the program at Miriam's Kitchen, read some of his poems for the show. He said he discovered his love of poetry at the program. On April 5, he took his collection of poems and personal artwork, "Poetry of Love, Poetry of Society and the Unusual," to the Library of Congress for a copyright.
His poetry speaks for the program and for homelessness in general, Mitchell said.
"I speak for all of the soup kitchens," he said.
