Before I was on the Elan staff, I had heard about their community events and how powerful and inspiring they had been. When the opportunity for Elan to be at Color Me Kona came around, I knew I wanted to be a part of that team. Color Me Kona is a festival that fundraises the Kid’s Mural Project, which aims to uplift and empower underprivileged youth around the city. It includes art instillations, vendors, live performances, interactive mural painting, and an overall really inspiring environment. Elan was a part of the vendors at Color Me Kona, and it was more rewarding than I ever thought it would be.

Being a part of the Elan staff already meant a lot to me, but this experience changed my view on the impact the Elan staff can have on the community. We all made a big effort to have an interactive and eye catching booth that would draw people in and it worked. We had a wide range of people come up and learn about what Elan is and I think the most inspiring part of it all was seeing how impressed people were when they learned about our magazine. Not only are we making an impact on those around us in the community, but I think we are inspiring them as well.

This event inspired me a lot as an artist. The vendors that we were surrounded with were so creative. The art that decorated the park was amazing as well, the whole environment was inspiring in itself. The artist that were there cared about what they were creating and it was obvious. It was really special to be around all those artists and when the event was over I became even more excited about future Elan events that I can be a part of. It really takes being at an event to understand how impactful Elan is and how important it is in this community. Events like Color Me Kona give us an opportunity to let people know we are here and we are engaged with the community.

The success of Color Me Kona gives me so much hope that we will make even more of a lasting impact at other events in the community in years to come. Without Elan I would never be able to experience events like Color Me Kona through the eyes of someone that is making an impact in the community. It prides me to be a part of a staff that is working to make Elan an even more important part of the community than it already is. My time on the Elan staff will be spent working hard to ensure we continue to spread our impact through the community with each event to come. For me, Color Me Kona is the start of my part in community engagement in Elan, and I’m excited to see what comes next.

– Anna Howse, Junior Fiction/CNF Editor

Coffee House was one of our first big events this past year that focused on community engagement. This show included a group of hand picked students, some doing duo pieces, others doing solo. The students practiced hard, as well as those on Elan, to put together the show and make it the best they could. In this event, many students performing shared personal writing pieces of their own with the audience. Many outsiders came to Coffee House and were able to witness these performances, which not only promoted writing, but the work of Elan as well.

I watched Coffee House from audience seats the two years before this one, and in this one I didn’t only perform, but was behind-the-scenes as a part of Elan as well. Seeing Coffee House from these two new lights was interesting because on one hand, I was getting ready to perform what the audience would be seeing on stage, and on the other hand, I was helping create what would be seen by the audience offstage (i.e. decorations, objects being sold, etc.) At first there was a lot of pressure I felt from both sides because all I could think about was how perfect everything had to be. In reality, it didn’t have to be perfect, just attention-grabbing and something to show that I cared as both a performer and as an Elan member.

It’s important for Elan to have community engagement events like this because it helps let our name be more known and to be seen for the work that we are doing, like events we put on or take part in, and the book that we create. Community engagement also allows Elan to further connect with the art world around us and opens our eyes to the new opportunities that can be given to us, and the opportunities we can give right back to our community.

Being in events like Coffee House as an Elan member shows me the connection we allow ourselves to have with our art community and how we deepen it to gain more interest from those in the community. In my mind, it is so exciting to see a group of people from the same community come together and enjoy the same thing for the same or similar reasons. Especially after events like this, when the performers are told how well they did, or when members a part of Elan are told how well they do with the book or putting on the event. It’s heartwarming to see that connection and to feel that success, that voice ringing in my head, “Yes, we have touched someone else, someone else sees us.”

That voice in my head, and little things like being congratulated on our work in our community outreach projects only excites me more for the events we are to do in the future. The fact there are always people who recognize us for what we do and they feel connected to us for what we do is so rewarding and it is one of the best feelings I have while on Elan.

– Catriona Keel, Junior Digital Media Editor

My favorite event that Elan held within the community that I was able to participate in was the Yellow House gallery last spring. I was assigned the role to be the visual art manager. This required helping pick art that had already been published in the book and then going to find permission to display the art before hunting down the physical copies of the pieces. Though the art procurement process was one of the most tedious aspects of the entire gallery, I had a lot of fun in the process. Seeing the gallery come to life as result of my peers and I’s decisions on specific pieces was incredibly gratifying. Each room had its own theme and, all together, it created a culmination of what it means to be find oneself as a young person and as a young artist. It included art not only from Douglas Anderson, but from the Savannah Art Academy in Georgia as well. It took us about five months to complete it all, but it was definitely worth all the effort through the numerous setbacks and unnerving deadlines.

One of my fondest memories of the event was sitting outside with some of the younger kids and making art with them. It was great seeing the artistic youth of the community and feeling as if the gallery was inspiring them to continue on their route to becoming a skilled artist in their near future. A lot of families attended the event, and there was not a single person who did not look entirely engaged with every piece of art and writing on the walls. Our work had paid off tenfold. As a staff member, I began to fully understand the importance of my role in Elan, as half the book is visual art and there are only two editors every year to manage it all to be cultivated into a colorful and lively edition. Art and writing grant viewers two unique ways to feel an emotional tug, and that tug is what the entirety of the Elan magazine strives for. Art, since the beginning of its existence, has been made specifically to tell stories and create strengthened bonds within all walks of mankind. Art tells stories in a way that allows colors, shapes, and strokes to become their own undefinable words.

Realizing the importance of art has allowed me to become more determined to pursue the arts as my future profession. Though I am a creative writer at Douglas Anderson, I have a passion for drawing that has only grown exponentially with my role in Elan. I have made it a personal goal of mine to have my art displayed in a gallery and be able to see someone react to it with the same emotion I watched people react to the student created pieces of art in the Yellow House gallery. The gallery only proved yet again how important art is to every aspect of life and, more importantly, the complex expression of it.

– Kathryn Wallis, Senior Art Editor