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Center for the Arts receives $83,200 grant from Roswell Park Alliance Foundation

by jmaloni

Submitted

Fri, Jan 10th 2014 08:50 pm

Funds to enable continuation of center's Arts in Healthcare Program at Roswell Park Cancer Institute

The Center for the Arts at the University at Buffalo has received a grant of $83,200 from Roswell Park Alliance Foundation quality of life committee. The funds will provide four artist stipends in the center's Arts in Healthcare Program at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, now in its sixth year.

The program includes six professional artists in residence, who bring their specialized art forms and skills to patients at Roswell Park. Their arts-based activities have proven to assist patients in expressing themselves, create opportunities for relaxation, and distract from stresses associated with diagnosis and treatment. Visitors, families and staff also benefit greatly from the program.

Thomas Burrows, executive director of the Center for the Arts, stated, "The University at Buffalo and Center for the Arts are honored to work in partnership with Roswell Park Cancer Institute on the initiative. From the beginning, the institute has been supportive and had understood the potential to serve the hospital population in a uniquely positive way. We applaud their dedication to the quality of life of patients and families."

"We recognize that creative outlets can be very therapeutic for people battling cancer and contribute a great deal to the welcoming and therapeutic environment at RPCI," said Cindy Eller, executive director of the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. "Artists can provide a distraction, start a conversation, and give patients and their families interesting things to see, experience or think about. The artist-in-residence program is entirely donor funded, and it has played a strong supporting role in patient care at Roswell Park Cancer Institute."

The mission of the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is to maximize dollars available for Roswell's most promising lifesaving research, treatment and prevention programs, while supporting the psychosocial needs of patients and families touched by cancer. Fundraising events and initiatives are carried out through a partnership between committed Roswell Park Alliance volunteers and foundation staff.

One of the foundation's priority funding areas is quality of life programs benefiting patients and families. Quality of life grants are determined by a committee made up of those closest to Roswell's patients: nurses, physicians and representatives from other patient care and support areas.

The Arts in Healthcare initiative was established by the Center for the Arts at the University at Buffalo in 2008 to bring the performing and visual arts into health care settings at Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo and Roswell Park Cancer Institute. This is the first comprehensive program of its kind in Western New York. Support for the program at Roswell comes from donations made to the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation.

For more information, visit www.ubcfa.org.

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