Steve Barr
demonstrating
By Gina Malone
Cartoonist Steve Barr has collected a lot of heartwarming stories in the three years since he began the nonprofit Drawn To Help, a program that brings art into children’s hospitals. The abridged version, he says, is “I’ve seen a lot of healing.”
When the son of a friend was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, she suggested that Barr visit hospitals to draw with patients. He did and, finding both a need and a sense of fulfillment, the idea for an organization was born. He went through “a transition from a ‘me’ thing to a ‘we’ thing,” involving other artists and volunteers.
“The main thing I want people to realize is the incredible healing impact on children—and also on the artists,” he says. “We do bedside visits and group activities. We’ve worked in isolation units. We’ve brought smiles to children in Hospice care.”
Lyndsey Hoffman is a child life specialist and director of Camp Courage, a recreational facility for children from the Carolinas and Georgia who have cancer and blood disorders. “Drawing can be very therapeutic for both children and adults,” she says. “Steve has a calm and comforting demeanor when he works with our patients and families, but also shows great excitement when the children and adults learn to draw something they did not think they could.” (A resemblance to Santa Claus doesn’t hurt his rapport with children either, Barr jokes.)
He has been a cartoonist since the day his rendering of Mickey Mouse on a school desk earned him afterschool time with his fourth-grade teacher as he scrubbed away his creation. But along with punishment came encouragement when she sent him home with a stack of paper to use when future creative urges hit.
Since then, he has worked for newspapers, magazines and publishers, and has written a number of how-to books on cartooning for children.
Steve Barr with patient
For now, Drawn To Help is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization. The group provides oversight of grant funds and donations received by charities that have not yet achieved nonprofit status.
Grants help him stay ahead of demand for hospital visits, Barr says. His major expenses are travel costs and art supplies. When he and fellow artists visit hospitals, it can be on an individual basis or in a group setting. The children they visit receive gift bags of art supplies—new and nontoxic products—at least $10 worth in each.
In an effort to reach more children, Drawn To Help has begun videotaping artists in order to broadcast drawing sessions, sometimes with the help of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, which has set up recording studios in hospitals around the country. Besides the books Barr donates to hospitals, digital libraries are also being created. Eventually, he says, thousands of drawings, activities and even entire books will comprise this collection. Hospital personnel can access materials via a flash drive worn around their necks.
Al Bigley, friend and fellow cartoonist, has joined the cause. “Steve has me scheduled for my first in-studio cartooning lesson here in Charlotte at the Levine Children’s Hospital. I can’t wait to be part of that! My lesson will be broadcast live to the hospital rooms at that location as well as saved and re-distributed later at that and other centers.” He adds, “If it brings happiness and fun to even one child, any effort is worthwhile.”
Barr credits a “series of fortunate events” for the success of his endeavors so far—grants coming when funds are running low, volunteers with needed expertise coming on board, artists asking to be involved.
“It is overwhelming,” he says of the work, “and absolutely worth it. Everything I read in studies that I heard was possible, I’ve had the unique opportunity to watch happen right in front of me.”
To learn more about Drawn To Help or to donate to the project, visit drawntohelp.com or fracturedatlas.org, or find them on Facebook.
