Divine intervention swayed Jennifer Howell’s path from aspiring filmmaker to admired philanthropist from the moment she set foot in Los Angeles. Not long after moving west, Howell returned to her hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi to celebrate the life of a childhood friend whose bout with Leukemia had exposed him to the isolated experience of a sterile hospital ward. Fresh from film school, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a greater purpose for her creative talents, and she rounded up some of her artist friends to share their time and talents with adolescent in-patients at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
Now, over 12 years later, Howell’s non-profit organization, The Art of Elysium, facilitates artistic workshops for children battling serious medical conditions at more than a dozen hospitals between LA and New York. We spoke with Howell in the weeks leading up to AOE’s annual Pieces of Heaven fundraiser, about her personal inspiration, enduring motivation and advice for aspiring philanthropists…
What inspired you to start AOE?
In 1997 a dear friend of mine had relapsed with Leukemia. [There was] a little boy he had met while being treated at Vanderbilt. This little boy was left in the hospital room all day by himself– not because his parents were bad parents but they had other siblings to take care of and had jobs. So this child was left unattended for the majority of his stay. I kept thinking, “what can I do?” So in August of ’97, I got together a group of 23 artists- sculptors, painters, writers, guitar players- all of these artists willing to share their creative talents with the children.
We started with Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. I got to see the full circle of the impact. I got to see how happy it made the children and how it brightened their day and their lives and I also got to see how it transformed the artists. They would walk out saying, “when can I come back in; what else can I do?” It really helped their creative process as well. We would like to be in every city where there’s a child in a hospital bed and an artist and community willing to work with those children. We bridge the gap between artist communities, and children in hospitals.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to start a non-profit?
Research what is already out there. There are so many wonderful non-profits out there that might umbrella an idea as opposed to starting a whole new charity. I did a lot of research on what was happening in the hospitals with artists and when I started developing this it was because there really wasn’t anything else like this out there. Now that we’ve been around for twelve years, we’ve gotten a lot of calls that have really helped us grow. Michael Muller is a photographer who wanted to start a program called Kids Clicking Kids, which would only deal with photography and children. We’ve umbrellaed that idea – which is great because now our programming expands and but it’s still its own program– it’s Kids Clicking Kids within the Art of Elysium. He didn’t have to go and start a separate non-profit. It’s helpful to have experience working with non-profits to see how it works internally. Getting the support that you need to facilitate your mission is hard and marketing that idea to recruit people is a big challenge in the non-profit world.
You’ve been successful with enlisting the help of celebrities, which is something that must be the “holy grail” of having a non-profit.
The celebrities who are involved literally came from that organic artist word-of-mouth process. We never said, “OMG, we’re going to find celebrities to get involved.” We’re based in LA so I think that’s also been very helpful. I think the first celebrity who ever came in was Jeremy Sisto. That was because a photographer who’d been coming in was a childhood friend with Jeremy. Jeremy did a music workshop and told Ethan Embry. Then Ethan came in and told someone else.
Yeah, it seems like the celebrities involved are not just slapping their name on a PSA. They’re actually going in there and doing this great thing.
It seems like the return on investment is so much more profound because the artists are not just giving money. They’re giving their time.
What do you see this do for the kids and how have you seen it transform the volunteers?
It gives these children freedom of choice in an environment where they often don’t have choices. They’re told what medicine to take. They’re told what time they’re going to go through rehab treatment. They’re told what time they have chemo. Their entire experience at the hospital is regimented. Whenever our artists come in, they’re given an ability to express themselves and to choose– whether it’s choosing a color to paint with or choosing a song or choosing a word to write. To have choice in that kind of environment is absolutely crucial to the wellbeing of the children and to their healing process.
The community of artists we have going in, without fail, all ask to come back. It changes them at such a spiritual level– to be able to connect to a child and see the power and impact of their own creativity and their voice and the healing power of art– their art.
