SAN ANTONIO — "More paint, until you’ve reached the outer circle, deal?" art therapist Yadi Puente is working with a group of children. "It’s one community when we come and make art," she said.
Some kids come from what we might call normal backgrounds, others from foster to adoption journeys, but they're all together, on this day. "Getting to create art as one, as one community, because that’s what it boils down to, because everybody is the same," Puente said. The weekend gathering is all part of the larger purpose, art therapy. "Lots of times, children don’t have the voice to express thoughts or feelings, or even sometimes the trauma that they have experienced, but through the art, the art is able to capture those moments," she said.
"The art therapist, who is trained, can work with them, in a way to draw out things that wouldn’t be able to be drawn out through traditional talk therapy," mother Erica Brandau said.
And thanks in part to a $7,500 grant from the folks at Silver and Black Give Back, these kids were able to come together with students from Saint Luke’s Catholic School for a total of nine sessions.