Katy resident and professional artist Vickie McMillan is in Africa this summer. She is photographing and painting the landscape, the animals, and the people.  She is also piloting a special ARTreach Project called HEART (Hope and Education through the Arts) this is a program designed to equip the local people with creative skills they can use to make a living for their family. 

McMillan is presently working with the owner of a local citrus farm managing a center that cares for over a hundred of the worker’s children. She is teaching art and is designing projects that the older children can make and then sell in town. She is also teaching watercolor workshops every Tuesday evening for adults the community.  With nine adults attending last week, and over twenty expected to attend next week.  Vickie has been helping the new artists organize an informal art show to provide an opportunity to learn to exhibit and sell their artwork professionally.
These are new opportunities for this poverty stricken community. Good things are happening” she reports, “The creative energy and art talk is stirring up the air, there is a sense of hope and enthusiasm circulating throughout the entire community.
 
Vickie does not take all the credit for the positive energy behind her HEART Project, which is being funded by donations to her church. She is in Africa and a distinct mission trip and her team has spoken in many schools and churches. Part of Vickie’s work is to paint, while the pastor speaks, and as a team, they are utilizing the universal language of art and music to share a message of hope and love.

Vickie is journaling her experiences and submitting updates each month to ARTreach. You can follow her adventure online at Houston Chronicle’s chron.com