Making room for art

A group of 22 graduates from the Leadership Burbank program celebrated its philanthropic efforts on Wednesday night at Woodbury University.

After nine months, members of several organizations and businesses in the city completed their work for the leadership training program, providing a new arts-and-crafts room to children at the Boys & Girls Club, as well as 15 portable defibrillators for the city.

The Leadership Burbank program is designed to groom a different group of community leaders in Burbank every year. Along the way, it asks them to complete projects to benefit the city.

"It was fun and it was a lot of work, actually getting your hands dirty," said graduate Jessa Freemyer, of the process of redoing the arts-and-crafts room at the Boys & Girls Club.

During the graduation ceremony and presentation of the group's projects, they showed photos of the arts-and-crafts room before the Leadership Burbank graduates made $7,500 in improvements, all from donated funds.

"When we first saw it, I was absolutely shocked," Freemyer said. "It just wasn't a very creative environment."

It also wasn't a place that many of the children were interested in spending time, Shanna Warren, executive director of the Burbank Boys & Girls Club said.

"Before, we had to kind of bribe the kids to come in and now they want to come in," Warren said.

The group worked on the room for about a month,including clearing out the area, repainting and adding new cabinets and art supplies for the children to use.

During the middle of their work, the Boys & Girls Club also hired arts instructor Sherry DeLizia, who began giving the children art exercises and immediately utilized the new faculties of the room.

"They're learning about artists too now, not just coloring or dittoing," Freemyer said.

Accomplishments of the program were not isolated to child services alone. The Leadership Burbank graduates were able to donate 15 portable defibrillators, each costing $1,700, to organizations around the city through their fundraising efforts.

Almost half of them will go to various parks in the city; one will go to Burbank High School and another to John Burroughs High School, with the rest spread among some private organizations like the Burbank Town Center.

"We are actually placing more units than we anticipated," said graduate Mike Thomas, vice president of Liberty Building Maintenance & Services Inc. "When I received them in my office, it was really a proud moment. The sense of accomplishment was almost tangible."

Thomas worked on both the arts-and-crafts room and defibrillator projects.

"I didn't know what I was getting into beforehand and now I'm extremely happy that I've done it," Thomas said. "I would do it again in a minute."