Alexa & Grace Matos

We are Alexa and Grace Matos, High School Students at Miami Beach Senior High School. When we lost our Grandmother just before the end of 2020, a very difficult year for many people around the world, we wanted to find a way to make her memory and her beauty last, in more than just our hearts. She was always an artist and a painter, and instilled that creativity on our family in so many ways until Alzheimer’s disease slowly started to take her away from us. We knew that by helping to bring more art and artists into the world, we could make her legacy live on in a way that could go beyond the young artists we would help.

But our Grandmother was not our only inspiration. Throughout our brief lives, we have been blessed in so many ways, and through our efforts of Mission and Service have seen first hand how many less fortunate children there are, who could use a boost. We have been fortunate enough to bring Holiday Gifts to migrant children in the Redlands area of Florida for several years, typically delivering these gifts to their schools. We saw first hand the joy that even a small gift could bring these children and always noticed how a gift such as an art kit, paints and other art supplies were so often met with extra joy. Things that we may have taken for granted like access to paints, brushes, colored pencils, thanks to our parents and grandmother always making sure we had, were in such high demand. We knew that this was a way we could make a difference, and we knew that children full of creative spirit, but without the means to fully express themselves, are everywhere, even in our own community.

For those reasons we decided that we wanted to use the internship money we had earned to start this fund, and to start sharing our message in order to raise more funds. We have started with five amazing artists in the public school that we, our brother and our mother attended, presenting them each with a gift certificate to a local art supply store so they can improve their skills even more.

We know this is just the beginning as we raise more funds and reach out to more children. As our Grandmother would say “El primer trazo de pincel es el mas importante” – “the first brush stroke is the most important one.” This is our first brush stroke !