Watauga Valley Art League President Thomas Gaetano (left) accepted a donation from Northeast Community Credit Union on Friday to become the first official sponsor of the league's Canvas sponsorship to support summer workshops. Holding the enlarged check with Gaetano are Teresa C. Arnold, chief financial officer of Northeast Community Credit Union, and Larry Knott, WVAL membership director.
Watauga Valley Art League President Thomas Gaetano (left) accepted a donation from Northeast Community Credit Union on Friday to become the first official sponsor of the league's Canvas sponsorship to support summer workshops. Holding the enlarged check with Gaetano are Teresa C. Arnold, chief financial officer of Northeast Community Credit Union, and Larry Knott, WVAL membership director.
ELIZABETHTON — Northeast Community Credit Union has renewed its support for art in the community and the Watauga Valley Art League and took the next step by purchasing the first of the WVAL’s official sponsorship package to support art education in the Tri-Cities.
Thomas M. Gaetano, president of the Watauga Valley Art League accepted a $250 donation from the credit union, which make the credit union the first official sponsor of the league’s Canvas Sponsorship which supports summer workshops.
Teresa Arnold, chief financial officer at Northeast said “the Watauga Valley Art League has been an important part of our community for nearly 40 years. Their workshops, demonstrations, and educational programs have benefited many people over the years and have showcased a huge amount of talent among kids and adults alike. Northeast Community Credit Union has been particularly supportive of their activities for children as we are the premier provider of financial literacy education for youth in our local schools. It is a widely known fact that art does much more to provide a relaxing pastime for young people — it stimulates young minds in many ways, and that stimulation affects how they grasp concepts, learn to solve problems and much more.”
Arnold listed several ways art does this, including increasing academic performance, stimulating creativity and problem-solving skills, promoting self-esteem and self-expression, contributing to fine motor skill development, helping develop visual-spatial processing, and building memory and self control.
Arnold went on to say “artistic activities foster development. It has been scientifically proven that those activities stimulate both sides of the brain and increase the capacity of memory, attention and concentration. Artistic projects actually help develop reading skills and children do better in math and science. An art project can help children develop new vocabulary and concepts. We see this as a good fit for paving the road to the other skillsets we work to develop in area youth.”
