Shirt On Their Back
By Gundelina A. Velazco
PhD CEO/President
This is a project involving the Round Home kids. We’re giving out t-shirts to homeless and poor children. The designs on the t-shirts are made by the Round Home kids themselves, which depict their representations of their personal triumphs (“I’ve been found”, “My storm has been calmed”, “God is my refuge”, “Fear not, for I am with you”, "It is joy unspeakable and full of glory", etc.), with the subscript "Made by a child in the Round Home, a place of refuge for children". It is part of their therapy to reach out to homeless children who are like they were before, through their God-given talent.
Because of the Round Home children's inspirational art reproductions, which are from someone who's been there and bounced back, "Shirt" does not only mean physical t-shirt. It can also signify a message of hope, or a push for strength or courage, or an expressed empathy and support, or an extended hand in solidarity and comfort
The little hands that made the drawings are not experienced nor trained in the art. But they have experienced both the difficult things a child could experience and now what it takes to be able to say, or draw, "I've been found" or "My storm has been calmed".
"Back" does not only mean the physical back. It can mean life, or vulnerability, or hopelessness, aloneness or emptiness. Therefore, "Shirt on their back" is another way of saying, a message of hope in life, strength in vulnerability, courage in hopelessness, empathy and support in aloneness, or comfort in emptiness.
"Their" not only refers to a homeless child, but to anybody longing for home. Anyone wearing the shirt or given the shirt may also claim they are one of "their", whether they are in need of hope, strength, support, or comfort, or to simply wanting to bounce back and inspire others, remembering that there was a child who did just that.
There are child artists in the Round Home. On the other hand, there are countless homeless children on the streets. We give glory to God for every stroke of the child artist’s brush, and for every shirt we could put on a homeless child’s back.
-GAV
