Brooklyn St. Center

Location
Brooklyn Street Center is a day facility for adults with mental and developmental disabilities located in the town of Morrisville, Vermont (pop. 4,700). The GRACE workshops are held in the large, bright common room. Art work is displayed throughout the building. Lamoille County Mental Health Services, a regional mental health agency, sponsors the day programs.

Numbers
8 to 10 participants; one workshop weekly throughout the year.

History
In 1992, GRACE contacted the administration of Brooklyn Street Center to discuss the possibility of a workshop. In partnership with Lamoille County Mental Health, GRACE was awarded start-up funding for a series of workshops through the Copley McGaw Fund, a foundation administered through Copley Hospital in Morrisville. These initial workshops generated great enthusiasm for additional services from the clients and administrators. Today, Lamoille County Mental Health Services funds eighty percent of the workshop costs, and the remainder is funded through grants and contributions to GRACE.

Most of the artists from the Center have seen their work hanging in local exhibits, and many of the works have been lauded by critics and curators in the region and beyond.

“I have had the opportunity to work with the GRACE group in the past year and am impressed with your growing commitment to enhance the lives of adults with psychiatric disabilities. Your program offers a viable means for enabling individuals to: have opportunities to grow and learn art skills based on interest and desire, not on aptitude; participate in and contribute to local communities by getting the art work to the public during your exhibitions; be treated as an equal partner with respect and dignity.”

- Doreen Lorentzen, Community Program Specialist, Vermont Division of Mental Health

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P.O. Box 960 • Hardwick, Vermont • 05843
802.472.6857 | contact@graceart.org

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