HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP Parks & Recreation Department
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MARCH 2020 FREE
HOPEWELLEXPRESS.COM
Nurturing hearts and minds
District gives kids night off
Nurtured Heart Approach sessions set for April 15
By NicOLe ViViANO
By JULiA MArNiN AND JOe EMANsKi Peter Tierney’s relationship with his son, Koga, became strained in the fall of 2018, after Koga started attending Timberlane Middle School. Tierney and his wife, Naoko, would track Koga’s academic performance with Oncourse, the web portal by which parents can review all of a child’s school assignments in the Hopewell Valley Regional School District. Koga was routinely failing to turn in his homework. “We’d be tracking this catastrophe daily,” Tierney says. When they would approach their son about the missed assignments, he would angrily deny any wrongdoing. They fought with Koga, now 12, over his lying to cover up missed homework assignments. Although Koga’s test scores were high, the missed assignments were bringing his grades down. Tierney says Koga has been diagnosed with inattentive ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and that ADHD was a reason behind his behavior. Still, knowing that did not mean the parents did not struggle to understand and address his actions. They worked with their son to help him get organized. When that did not work, they See HEART, Page 6
Healing art instructor Jane Zamost will present at the Hopewell Valley Arts Council’s spring ArtConnect Forum, set for March 26 at the Pennington School. (Photo by Svetlana Boyko.)
The healing power of art Zamost to present at healing art forum March 26 By MicheLe ALPeriN In 2014, painter and mixed media artist Jane Zamost volunteered for a brand-new program at Capital Health Medical Center in Hopewell, the healing hands mobile art cart, which brought art to patients of all ages and illnesses. “I really loved it and saw amazing results,” she says. “You’re going into a room and someone was sad or in pain or bored, and I saw how art very quickly just healed people in measurable ways.”
She recalls, for example, a little girl who was crying because she had a stomachache, and her parents didn’t know what to do. “In five minutes the child was laughing and drawing. I gave the mother a crossword puzzle, and the father was painting. In fi fteen minutes, the whole room’s environment changed,” Zamost says. She also remembers a very fragile patient who she thought wouldn’t be able to hold a paintbrush. “He was sitting up in a few moments, painting. I was shocked.” Zamost will be speaking at the ArtConnect Forum on Thursday, March 26, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., the first of two forums exploring the theme “The Power of Art to Heal,” at the Pennington School’s Wesley
Forum in the Yen Humanities Building, 112 West Delaware Avenue. The other speaker is Diane Grillo, vice president, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton. The hospital’s integrative therapy nurse, Patricia McDougall, will also present. Two artists, Agata May’kowska and Paul Norris, will share stories of how art has helped heal and enrich their lives. Admission is $20 for nonmembers, free for Hopewell Valley Arts Council members. The forum, says executive director of the Hopewell Valley Arts Council Carol Lipson, was “created for people enthusiastic about art and artists.” Usually artists get together and talk about their inspirations, See ZAMOST, Page 4
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Students throughout the Hopewell Valley will have a little bit of free time this month. Hopewell Valley’s Night Off, is scheduled for Thursday, March 5. The event was planned by the Hopewell Valley Municipal Alliance along with the school district, who have organized school officials, sports teams, parents and community and religious leaders to take a break from overscheduling the district’s students and allow for personal time. The Night Off initiative was started in 2003 in response to the hectic schedules and increased workload of students and to promote the benefits of spending time with their families. By encouraging families to devote themselves to this uninterrupted time together, the HVMA, school district and community members hope that it is an opportunity all families will take advantage of this month. While superintendent of schools for Hopewell Valley Regional School District Thomas Smith manages coordinating the district schools’ schedules for setting a date, coordinator of the HVMA Heidi Kahme is responsible for reaching out to the community. “Our kids are very involved in activities, which is a good thing at times. It keeps kids out of trouble, but then again we need to find that balance of home time and activity time,” Kahme said. The Night Off is traditionally scheduled between the winter See OFF, Page 8
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