Summit Country Day Students Share the Gift of Art

Date posted: April 2, 2021

Students of The Summit Country Day School bestowed gifts of art to our Step-Up Autism Alternative Education program through a creative exchange project!

Stepping Stones’ Step-Up program serves students with severe autism who aren’t able to succeed in a traditional school environment. The program matches each student with an Educational Aide for an individualized education that enables them to excel in their studies while increasing communication and functional living skills. Currently, Step-Up serves students from 12 Greater Cincinnati school districts at our Given Campus in Indian Hill.

Late late year, Summit County Day’s Campus Minister Stephanie Duggan initiated a community service project with Stepping Stones. The private school‘s students would create colorful pieces of art for each Step-Up student to display at home. To start, our classes wrote pen pal messages to Summit’s students across town — introducing themselves as well as favorite hobbies, sports teams and more. 

The messages from Step-Up inspired Summit’s students to paint a collection of more than 25 canvases. Each painting was tailored to the personal favorites of our participants. While the two schools are unable to mix in person at this time, the community service project was a creative way to learn about one another through a shared appreciation of art!