My Nonprofit Reviews

Artists for World Peace, a volunteer group in MIddletown, Connecticut, has worked for nearly twenty years to provide health care, financial support, educational opportunities and hope both domestically and internationally. Year after year our projects have answered perceived needs with art and social action projects.

I am one of fifteen women from diverse parts of the state on the AFWP Council of Elders. Our meetings, led by the founder and director of the group, Wendy Black Nasta, follow the Lakota way that is her native spirituality. Using our intuition we brainstorm projects and future directions, loose visions at first. We speak with levels of trust and compassion that have emerged among us over years of dreaming and manifesting projects together.

Small working committees form rapidly at the meetings after suggested projects have been discussed. Previous projects have included soliciting art work and creating "Peace Walls" in various parts of the country; building a health facility and other resources in a small Tanzanian village; constant financial and emotional support of many Children of Peace; organizing eye clinics on Rosebud Reservation; assembling and sending warm clothing and other resources annually where desperately needed; sharing art supplies with Middletown children during this pandemic ("Buckets of Love"); holding three moving statewide Interfaith Dialogues and much more.

I am continually amazed and gratified by the generosity of artists across the country and other supporters of our work, none of which could be accomplished by AFWP alone. The extended Artists For World Peace family thus changes the world, one considered action of love at a time