Chicago area art students create portraits for Colombian children

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Budding young artists are putting their talents and humanity on display to help children around the globe as part of an effort called Memory Project.

Advanced placement art students at Oak Forest High School have put in countless hours of painting and drawing to send portraits to children in Colombia.

Oak Forest High School AP studio teacher Dan Chambers said Memory Project works with charity organizations around the world to send artwork to groups of children who are orphans, refugees, or otherwise living in difficult circumstances.

Those charities take pictures of the children to send to students who work with the Memory Project, and the students use the photos to create artistic portraits.

"It was just an email one time from the founder, Schumaker, just inviting schools to participate, and at the time we were just starting our portrait unit, so I said, 'Hey, this works out well,'" he said. "When we start, I ask [students] if they'd be willing to participate, because ultimately what's happening is the students are making the paintings and drawings for someone else, and they're going to be giving them away."

Students also trace their own hands, and write a message inside that tracing, then send their artwork to the child in the portrait.

"If I can make someone's day a little better in a difficult time, I thought that would be really nice to put a smile on their face," art student Abbey Hernandez said. "Once we received our pictures, I actually got one. He is 4, and he loves blue and swimming, and I thought I could incorporate that into there. So I really feel like I made, like, a connection; or I tried to capture everything that I did know about him into it; and, yeah, it just makes me feel really good, knowing that they're going to be sent off to them."

Chambers said this is the fourth time in recent years that students have participated in the Memory Project at Oak Forest High School.