Art and Creativity for Healing Inc.

The mission of Art & Creativity for Healing is to support emotional healing through art and creative expression for those living in pain, grief, fear or stress.

For 24 years, we have directly fostered transformational change in more than 90,000 children, women and families who have found our creative intervention a valuable tool to address the often-unbearable pain in their lives.  With more than 45 non-profit program partners in Orange County, we have created an effective methodology for reaching people in pain. 
Our programmatic focus is to encompass six specific programs: women and their children who have been victimized by domestic violence at Human Options and their Satellite sites, children and teens from economically challenged families struggling with anger and dysfunction at 15 Families and Communities Together Orange County (FaCT) sites; at-risk youth from Orange County Department of Education's ACCESS programs; children hospitalized with cancer at Children’s Hospital in Orange County (CHOC); “Healing for Heroes and their Families,” working with Camp Pendleton’s infantry personnel and their families; "Vintage Colors" working with seniors struggling with grief and other hardships, and homeless children and their families serviced by various homeless shelters in Orange County, such as OC Rescue Mission and American Family Housing.

Our most significant accomplishment over the last year was our continuous efforts as an organization to serve the community through our existing program, as well as expanding and launching new curriculum and programs to service diverse populations. A few outstanding accomplishments of 2023 and continuous efforts in 2024 are:
-We started a new program called "Exceptional Families: Children, Teens & Their Families with Disabilities" for children/adults with developmental disorders or intellectual disabilities and their caregivers. We have partnered with New Vista School, a school for children/teens with autism, Gigi's Playhouse, an organization serving children/adults with Down Syndrome, and Pathway Schools, a school for children with learning differences.
-We continued our partnership with 24 Orange County Department of Education Alternative Schools. We continue to aim our focus on supporting teen mental health and we are fortunate to have the opportunity to work with such a large population of teens on a weekly basis at the year-round schools.
-We have gifted over 2,000 Healing Art Supply Boxes and Bags this year. Over 500 Healing Art Boxes went to San Onofre school on Camp Pendleton to help children of the deployed. In an effort to extend our community outreach, many of the Healing Art Boxes and Bags went to non-profit partner agencies we have not given to in the past.
-Our online Art4Healing International Certification Program has been a huge success this year. We have students from all over the world taking the certification. We accepted over 30students into the program and graduated 13 students this year. We continually receive feedback from the students that this program prepares them to be effective Art4Healing Facilitators in their own community.
-We have continued to offer Live Zoom Art4Healing workshops every weekend so that we can reach participants around the world, from Canada to Malaysia. We also offered monthly in-person workshops again to reach participants in our local community. Some of our non-profit partner agencies also utilized our virtual workshops and have attested that the virtual workshops create a safe space for the participants to express themselves and are very effective.
-This year we continued to go to Orange County Rescue Mission monthly to serve families. We have facilitated workshops and gifted art supplies for over 10 years and we will continue to partner with them next year. Many of the participants expressed that Art4Healing helped them with issues of anger, forgiveness, and hope.
-Thanks to a grant, we were able to go to Human Options Women's Shelter weekly to serve women who have experienced domestic violence. We also facilitated Art4Healing workshops to women survivors at satellite sites, like the Minnie Street Family Resource Center. We will continue to partner with Human Options next year. Art4Healing gives the survivors' pain a new voice and a way to express feelings in a safe place.
-Our Healing for Heroes Wounded Warrior Battalion West program on Camp Pendleton is going strong. We are excited to be back to the battalion weekly. We also returned to facilitate weekly workshops at the San Onofre Elementary & Middle School on the base, helping the children of the deployed experience Art4Healing.
-We also released our Special Report that focuses on digging deeper with therapeutic art, highlighting transformative testimonials and showcasing fundamental mental health principles, this report emphasizes the unique aspects of our method to promote self-discovery and self-healing.

The majority of those served by Art & Creativity for Healing, Inc. come from low-income or working poor families, who can barely afford to provide life's necessities including food, shelter and clothing, let alone art supplies for their children. The families we serve through our programs face many hardships, including those associated with military deployments, domestic violence, poverty and hunger, and lack of resources to educate their children.
As such, our most pressing need is funding that will enable us to continue our collaboration with our nonprofit agency partners; volunteers to help us ensure that we have the people and resources to run our programs; and art supplies for our programs and the "Art4Healing Bags and Boxes" that are provided to our demographics served by our nonprofit agency partners. We are grateful for donations of any size. For example, a donation of $5,000 can help provide 7 Art4Healing workshops to 70 children or adults through any of our nonprofit partners; a donation of $600 will enable us to deliver "Healing Art Boxes" to a classroom of 15 children participating in our "Healing for Heroes and their Families" program at Camp Pendleton.

Art & Creativity for Healing, Inc. serves the Orange County and San Diego County regions.

"Since the inception in 2000, we have been able to serve 6 key programs in the Orange and San Diego Counties to those suffering from pain, fear, grief, or stress. One program that is currently in high demand for Art4Healing workshops is the "Raging Colors: Expressive Painting for Troubled Teens" program. With the partnership is Orange County Department of Education ACCESS program and the Boys & Girls Club Stanton, we are providing 2-hour weekly workshops to at-risk youth and teens the opportunity to enhance and strengthen their academic skills, gain exposure to painting and the creation of visual art, and participate in a new way of communicating. For many of these youth and teens, their everyday lives are often stressful and they experience many difficulties, such as legal issues, foster emancipation, homelessness, abandonment, bullying, teen pregnancy, and the most crucial: mental health issues. We have specifically designed Art4Healing curriculum for the program to meet the demographic's needs: Anger Management workshops, Expressing Feelings with Color workshops, Raging Colors curriculum . The youth and teens who have been labeled difficult, "unteachable", and at high risk not only get the opportunity to establish a greater connection to their teachers and learning environment, but they also learn to look at creativity as a way to connect with their thoughts and actions that lead them towards success. As a result, the workshop participants develop added skills, knowledge, and learn values such as respect, patience, self-disciple, self-worth, integrity, tenacity, communication, and teamwork.
We are so fortunate to work with our partner agencies to serve the youth and teens who greatly benefit from the Art4Healing method."
 
Laurie Zagon
Founder/Director
Art & Creativity for Healing, Inc. 

"My name is Lino Cambaliza and I have had the privilege to be on the Board of Directors with Art & Creativity for Healing for the past 3 years. What drew me to this organization was a very clear vision along structured approach to heal people's life with art, regardless if they identify themselves artistic or not. Emotionally struggled individuals can face and process their feelings that are now displaying on the canvas. My wife is one of those individuals. She has taken many classes and every class healed her heart, little by little. Seeing her sparkling eyes after a class motivates me to stay on the board, to continue contributing so more can heal. Lastly, as an experienced CPA working with many for profit entities, I'm always so proud of this small organization for its ability to manage its finances. Art & Creativity for Healing is a humble and frugal organization. I feel so blessed to be a part of it."

Lino Cambaliza, CPA
Chair of Art & Creativity for Healing, Inc. Board of Directors
Cambaliza & Associates