Scholarships: Tips for the Young American Creative Patriotic Art Contest

Kim Lewis
2015-2016 Scholarships
National Ambassador

I’m hearing about the fantastic number of entries you've received and the ways you recognized those who participated in the Voice of Democracy and Patriot’s Pen Contests:

• Department of Oklahoma Scholarships Chairman Sheila Crawford is about to burst as they received 6582 entries for Patriot’s Pen! 
• Department of Delaware Scholarships Chairman Sue Beachboard sent photos of the creative displays and unique areas they used to promote both contests. 
• Many of you have used social media such as Facebook to tell about your Department Voice of Democracy and Patriot’s Pen award banquets. You’ve been presenting awards to students not only at your local VFW and Auxiliary meetings, but also at School Board Meetings, School Assemblies and PTA meetings. Good job everyone!

It’s time to put that same enthusiastic effort into our Young American Creative Patriotic Art Contest! We still have time to promote this scholarship contest. Have you asked your Voice of Democracy participants to enter this contest, too? Have you asked the students in your neighborhood, at your church and the children or grandchildren of your friends? We want to increase student participation in this contest. We had 3,443 entries last year and we want to exceed that number.

Make sure the students participating have the best possible chance to have their entry move up through the levels of judging. While the U.S. Flag is often used in entries, it can also be the biggest source of problems. Common mistakes include:

• Not enough stars or stripes
• Stripes in the wrong order or place
• The Flag appears to have something standing on it, written on it or lying on it.  

Please have copies of the Federal Flag Code available for the students.

Time is running short to enter submissions for the Continuing Education Scholarship. The application is available HERE and the deadline for receipt of the application at National Headquarters is February 15, 2016.  This is an excellent opportunity for yourself, your spouse and your children!

Our National Hospital Ambassador suggested in her January blog that the Auxiliary Hospital Chairman "Partner with your Scholarships Chairman and invite your Post's Patriot's Pen and/or Voice of Democracy winners to share their essays with hospitalized veterans. You could also invite the winner of the Young American Creative Patriotic Art Contest to share their artwork at the same time."  What a great way to have our youth, who possibly would never have this opportunity, to visit with and spread some cheer to our hospitalized veterans. You might just end up with a new hospital volunteer!

QUESTIONS:

1. Several of the Department Scholarships Chairman has asked about a National Scoring Sheet for Patriotic Art and a Release for Patriotic Art. Both documents were contained on the 2015-2016 Program Year CD given to your President at Senior-Vice Training. For those who don’t have it, the documents (and others) are listed below:

• National Scoring Sheet for Patriotic Art
• Release of Artwork for Patriotic Art 
• Fillable Local Auxiliary Media Release for Patriotic Art
• Patriotic Art Helpful Hints that should be used when making sure the entry from your student has the best possible chance for being a National winner 

1. To see how your Department Voice of Democracy winner places at the National level, watch The Parade of Winners. It will be live streamed on www.vfw.org beginning at 6:00 p.m. EST on Monday February 29, 2016.