With summer ending, the letters and photos are pouring in from the young artists and writers who took part in the Young Artists Awards program. The Young Artists Awards program helps connect exceptionally gifted teens with summer intensive programs across the country.

We were able to do so much more than we expected because everyone—from parents to teachers to principals to schoolboards to camp directors and community organizers—bent over backwards to help us along. The weeks following our Carnegie Hall awards ceremony were a whirlwind of finding camps, getting applications together, helping to coordinate travel.

Writopia Lab; Buck’s Rock Camp; Interlochen; School of the Museum of Fine Arts; School of Visual Arts; Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop—these arts organizations were especially generous in their assistance. Students who had tons of desire and natural ability were given the chance to explore painting, sculpture, glass blowing, radio production, poetry, creative writing.

Here are some of the pictures the Young Artists class of 2009 sent us.

Complete list of partnering art and writing organizations:

Buck’s Rock Camp
California College of the Arts Pre-College Program
Chicago Area Youth Writing Camp
Cranbrook Summer Art Institute
Idyllwild Summer Arts Program
California State Summer School for the Arts Innerspark
Interlochen
Girls Write Now
Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop
Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Summer Seminar
Maryland Institute College of Art Summer Pre-College
Parsons The New School for Design Pre-College Academy
Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Summer Art Camp
School of Visual Arts Summer Art Camp
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Pre-College Summer Studio
Studio in a School
University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop
Wellesley College Intermediate Explorations Program
Writopia Lab

This year, we hoped to help 20 students find programs that matched their interests—from sculpture and photography to creative writing. We ended up helping 48.