This year we partnered with Grammy Award-winning artist Miri Ben-Ari and her organization The Gedenk Movement to present a brand new award opportunity for Scholastic Art & Writing Awards participants. This new award asked middle and high school students to create original works of art or writing that reflect upon the lessons learned from the Holocaust and other genocides, with the intent to raise awareness of the importance of increasing tolerance to safeguard a peaceful society. In just this first year, we received over 2,500 submissions from creative teens around the country, and six young artists and writers whose work exemplified this mission were presented with the 2014 Gedenk Award for Tolerance along with a cash scholarship sponsored by Gedenk! The Alliance, Miri Ben-Ari, and Gedenk would like to congratulate the winners. They are:

• Ross Cardillo, Value, Grade 12, Age 18, Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, CA
• Alissa Damato, Religious Rifle, Grade 12, Age 18, Centreville High School, Centreville, VA
• Laura Fennessy, 1942, Grade 10, Age 15, Auburn High School, Auburn, NY
• Lily Gordon, Reconstruction Wings, Grade 9, Age 14, Bard High School Early College, New York, NY
• Elodie Nix, Dust, Grade 7, Age 11, John Jay Middle School, Katonah, NY

We were very impressed by the work, as well as moved by the stories told by all of the students who submitted work to this new creative challenge. Below is a work that really captured the spirit of the award, and is being presented with The Gedenk Award for Tolerance with Honors – a sculpture titled 1942 by Laura Fennessy.

To learn more about Miri Ben-Ari and The Gedenk Movement, visit the following pages:

Gedenk’s website: http://gedenkmovement.org
Gedenk’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/gedenkmovement
Gedenk’s Twitter page: https://twitter.com/GedenkMovement
Miri’s website: http://miribenari.com/
Miri’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/miribenari
Miri’s Twitter page: https://twitter.com/miribenari
.