Below is a recap of the meeting we had on Monday with Grace Serra from Children's Hospital.

1. PuppetArt will work with Detroit Children's Hospital to establish a performance of PuppetArt after the holidays for one of the units in the hospital.

2. The first performance will be set up as a one time performance with the idea that we will work to establish a partnership to move forward with regular performances and work to gain grant or foundation funding.

3. Possible areas that PuppetArt may performance at, is the the activity rooms for the children and the Healing Gardens during the warmer months.

4. The performances could be taped, so that the children could be able to watch them later.

5. Children who are able to come to the activity room would and the children who are not able could watch the performance from their room with the interactive video program that Children's has available.

6. Have puppet kits available after the performance so that the children could make puppets and for the children who are unable to come to the performance have the kits taken to the rooms for them.

7. Have service learning students available to assist with the making of the puppets in the individual rooms and in the activity room.

8. Have some character puppets available to visit some the the children's rooms, so that the children can actually see the puppets.

Finally, we had our meeting. Kelly, Grace and I met today to discuss PuppetArt establishing a working relationship with Children's Hospital. We discussed:

What PuppetArt had to offer the hospital;

How we could establish a program with the hospital;

What other nonprofits have done at the hospital in the regards of art;

A possible long term working relationship with the hospital.

Going forward Kelly, Grace and I are going to look at setting up a performance after the holidays, where the performance would focus on a selected group of children. We discussed having it interactive, so that children who are unable to attend the performance, may watch it from their rooms. After the performance it may be possible for the puppets to visit the children in their rooms and deliver puppet kits to them. At this point it may be possible to have service learning students available to assist the children in the making of the puppets. The performance could also be taped, so that it could be watched at a later time by the children in the hospital.

Further we discussed that after one performance we could work to find grant funding and move to establish a regular program at the hospital on a regular basis.

So as you can see our meeting today was extremely productive and it appears that PuppetArt will be establishing a working relationship with the Children's Hospital.

Our meeting with Grace on Thursday was cancelled. Grace's son was ill and she had to pick him up from school. It seems like this project has been like this from the beginning. I am truly trying to keep a positive attitude, but have to admit that it is getting difficult. Especially, since I was suppose to have lunch with Anne Williamson on Friday regarding PuppetArt and she had to cancel again.

I did attend the opening performance of the Snow Queen last night, which was an original production and very well done by PuppetArt. The performance was based off of H.C. Anderson's fairy tale. I truly did enjoy the performance and see the potential for using puppets in medicine.

Further I was able to confirm a rescheduled meeting with Grace and Kelly by the end of the day on Friday, so hopefully our meeting set for Monday, December 5th at noon will not be cancelled and we can finally move this project forward.

Tomorrow Kelly and I meet with Grace Serra from Children's Hospital. Our agenda will be as follows:

1. Target Audience at the hospital to do a PuppetArt Performance for.

2. Building a working relationship with Children's that would allow for grant and foundation funding to build the program.

3. Grace has an upcoming Health Conference - Is there any opportunity for PuppetArt at the conference.

4. Future opportunities for PuppetArt and Children's Hospital.

Wish us Luck and I am looking forward to a positive outcome.

Our meeting on Monday was cancelled with Beaumont. The child life person, Kathleen Grobbel, we were scheduled to meet with had a family emergency. Hopefully, we will be able to reschedule before the end of the semester. We do have a meeting with Grace Serra next week at Children's and hopefully this will not be cancelled. In addition I will be meeting with Ann Williamson, who is on the board for PuppetArt next week for lunch to discuss possible projects for PuppetArt and to discuss me taking a position on the board for PuppetArt.

I am working on our Responsive Art piece and feel my idea for it is very good considering how everything is playing out with PuppetArt this semester. I truly think there is so much potential to the project, just getting a little frustrated with how slow things seem to be moving. I am also working on finding research for Kelly, in addition, to my other class and papers.

Teresa and I met with Kelly on Saturday at PuppetArt. We discussed our meeting on Monday with Kathleen Grobbel, who is the child life coordinator for Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak (main campus). As discussing what we are hoping to bring to Beaumont in the way of puppets and art therapy for children and hopefully expanding the program out as it builds, we decided that it would better to take the approach of first listening to Kathleen Grobbel and then moving on from there. Kelly indicated that she would also have a powerpoint ready to present about PuppetArt. Looking forward to a positive meeting with the group and hopefully being able to develop a program for children in the hospital first and then moving on from there.

Working on setting up the meeting with Grace Serra from Childrens and with Thanksgiving being next week, we are looking at the following week. Also have scheduled a meeting with Anne Williamson regarding a position on the board with PuppetArt. Moving along a lot slower than I would like, but continuing to try and make things come together. Being positive is what is important in something like this. Great things come in small steps.