ALLENTOWN, Pa. —\u00a0What began as an artistic exchange has grown into a life-changing connection between students in Allentown and children in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
“I’m excited for the breaking news,” said Allentown kindergartener, Josiah.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ‘breaking news’ he’s referring to is the beautiful artwork and letters gifted by students from Vieques, Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n
“You see how cute this is? They put it as a letter,” said Daniel Djuro.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With a suitcase full of memories and an even fuller heart, Djuro returned from Vieques, Puerto Rico, carrying heartfelt creations from the students he had the opportunity to meet.<\/p>\n
“I brought you guys this, so you can pass it and see them kindly and gently,” Djuro said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An unforgettable experience where learning flowed in both directions.<\/p>\n
Marco Caridad is the founder of the Biolumina artist residency, a unique experience in which Daniel had the honor and privilege of participating.<\/p>\n
“Through art, they are sharing stories, imagination and the sense of connections beyond geography,” Caridad said. “For Biolumina, this is exactly what a residency can do, bring artists communities and places into conversation.”<\/p>\n
“The opportunity to bring the work of my students in telling their stories and having them become the teachers in their town for one day, telling about their animals and their surroundings, was so magical and so inspiring,” Djuro said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And during his time in Vieques, Daniel not only created art alongside the students and shared lessons with them, but he also took part in an exhibition where artwork from students at both schools was displayed in a small gallery, highlighting the talent and creativity of each participant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Students at Arts Academy Elementary Charter School dove into the wildlife of Vieques with excitement and curiosity.<\/p>\n
“Those paintings look beautiful,” said Josiah.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They also received handwritten letters, and bilingual students read them out loud for everyone.<\/p>\n
And we can’t forget about one of their national symbols.<\/p>\n
“The Coqui is a frog. It’s a teeny, teeny, tiny frog,” said Djuro.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The reason it was named like that is because it goes, ‘coqui coqui coqui’,” said Emma, a third grader.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And a third grade teacher, Sariann Knerr, who sent a small gift to a teacher in Puerto Rico, also received a surprise in return.<\/p>\n
“Oh, she wrote it in Spanish. Alright estimada Sariann, that’s me if you guys didn’t know,” she said. “Included is this beautiful key chain with sand from Puerto Rico, and it’s the black sand, because of the volcanic islands, and it said her father made it.”<\/p>\n
“I’ll remember this for a very, very, very long time,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I learned about their animals, I learned about everything that they have, but I think that what I learned was their resilience,” Djuro said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A beautiful experience in every sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. —\u00a0What began as an artistic exchange has grown into a life-changing connection between students in Allentown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,232,153,155,154,233],"class_list":["post-249765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown-area","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}