OCCTAC NEWS

Dear Amigos! We are very happy to announce that our Santa Ana Suzuki String Students and their TEC students friends have made the YouTube Hit List Top 5 of Musical Holiday Greetings ! It's not too late to get your own hit musical message and greeting out to your family and friends! Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! Marion and your friends at OCCTAC.

Dear Amigos! Tired of writing greeting cards? Send musical wishes and reduce your carbon foot print! Our string students will help. At the same time you are helping them! Make a donation to the  SASS Violin Fund  and our Talented Young Violinist from SASS and TEC will perform a  Live Holiday Musical Greeting   just for them.  They will be unique personalized musical messages from you.   A  Musical Holiday Greeting   will be sent live via   Skype, Private Video or Phone . You can have one of these ‘one of a kind’  Musical Greetings  sent to a recipient of your choice (with out the big green elf and message boxes) by going to the following page on :   http://www.occtac.org/program/sass  Live Musical Holiday Greetings request page at OCCTAC.org There you can choose from a variety of Holiday  Carols (see list at the bottom of the page) and provide the contact and delivery information we need to get the job done for Santa. Your friend will be very surprised and have something

Dear Friends!  We are looking for Qualified Tutors for our WrapAround Program!  Qualified tutor - a person who demonstrates proficiency in the subject matter assigned who can assist students with queries and difficulties relating to subject matter and who has received additional training in tutoring children with emotional and behavioral problems.  The program is the Wraparound Program which is a collaboration between Orange County Children’s Therapeutic Arts Center (OCCTAC) and the Orange County Social Services Agency.  We are committed to providing tutoring services for at-risk children. OCCTAC is seen as a focal point of therapeutic arts services for children and youth in Orange County. Providing access to services for all children and their families impacted by physical, cognitive, language, social, emotional or learning disabilities.  If you have the following: · Experience working with transitional age youth  · Experience in working with a diverse communit

Please enjoy the pictures and revisit our blog for more updates from our Latin American Art Auction on November 18, 2011. We thank all of our volunteers for their hard work! We could not have done it without you! Thank you to Kay Chu for taking all the caption notes for the event photography! Marion for OCCTAC

OCCTAC in cooperation with Centennial Education Center offers free continued education classes for students 17 and older. This class is open to everyone in the community. Enrollment dates are flexible and ongoing, students can join the courses during the semester and finish on their own schedule as long as they fulfill the mandatory requirements. The course results in a state recognized Certificate, enabling graduates to find employment as executive, administrative assistants. We urgently need your help in publicizing this opportunity to the Santa Ana Community. The funding depends on enrollment numbers and we need 10 more students by end of December to be able to continue to offer this free class to our community. Interested students should contact Dolores Lopez, Youth Program Coordinator O.C. Children's Therapeutic Arts Center/ 2215 N. Broadway / Santa Ana, Ca. 92706 T: 714.547.5468 ext. 311

Please enjoy the preview of the art work available at our event on November 18, 2011. Get Tickets now online: http://occtac-latin-art-auction.eventbrite.com/ We look forward to seeing you on November 18th at The Bowers! For More Information, please call Teresa at 714 547 5468.

OCCTAC has a great program targeted for youth ages 17 to 21 who have dropped out of school, are out of school and/or are looking for employment. This program provides youth with the opportunity to acquire skills to successfully transition into the workforce, further their education, and reach their true work potential. Among other services, our program is designed to provide youth with hands-on PAID work experience and training in the arts, education, clerical, computer programs and technology. That's right guys, you will get paid to participate in our program! Thus, if you happen to know of youth who might benefit from such program please feel free to give them our contact information. WHO CAN APPLY? - YOUTH AGES 17-21 SANTA ANA RESIDENTS - CITIZENS OR LEGAL RESIDENTS OUT OF SCHOOL  AND HAVING THE RIGHT TO WORK IN THE US Please contact Dolores Lopez at (714) 547 5468

Event registration for "Building Hope" Latin American Art Auction for OCCTAC powered by Eventbrite

The Suzuki Violin Students at OCCTAC have been busy. Saturday, Oct. 1st, Irvine Global Village Festival Students from both SASS and TEC played their violins and serenaded children attending the Festival. The TEC Suzuki Booth became the Children’s music lounge, wedged between face painting and Japanese paper folding. We even got an interview with the Irvine City Community News reporter and the children played for the cameras. Hoping they will appear sometime later this year on the cultural page . The reporter studied violin as a youth and knew who Dr. Suzuki was. How lucky can you get. Monday, Oct. 10, Benise concert at the Grove, Spanish guitar and Latin Violinist as seen on PBS Ms. Cynthia and 16 SASS students and parent chaperones are invited to attend the Benise concert and stay for a ‘meet and greet’ after the concert. The complimentary tickets where made possible by the kind effort of Omar Lopez , the violinist featured at the concert.

Dear Friends! We want to take the time to thank everyone who volunteered for our wonderful Ocean themed community art workshop at the Festival of Children. Hundreds of kids got to decorate their reusable shopping bags and learned why it is important to keep plastics out of the ocean! We also created our dream islands and dream surfboards.  Gracias to Darrell Ferguson - who missed part of the action at Trestles during the Hurley Pro (Kelly Slater won it!) and Lindy Neubauer from Surfrider's Newport Beach Chapter for their support, the wonderful bags and their friendship! Gracias to our visual arts director and surfer girl Kathryn Forrest who also sacrificed a morning in the waves. And a Big THANK YOU to our student volunteers, Judith, Moises, Jenny and Victoria and friends whose names we unfortunately did not capture. We look forward to creating more wonderful events with Surfrider Foundation All Photos by Marion Renk-Rosenthal and Liss Aldana for OCCTAC.

           Dear Parents & Children! The OC Children’s Therapeutic Arts Center and the Newport Beach  Chapter of Surfrider Foundation will team up to conduct this Sunday’s Festival of Children’s Community Art Workshop at South Coast Plaza.  Date: September 18, 2011  Time: Noon to 4PM  Location: Carousel Court  OCCTAC focuses on improving the lives of children through the arts.  Surfrider Foundation has been protecting oceans, waves and beaches since 1984.  Together we aim at educating all participating children and their families about the importance of using reusable grocery bags instead of single use plastic bags as well as keeping the Orange County beaches clean by protecting the Orange County water shed. Now, what does this mean in terms of fun? Kids will get to decorate their very own Surfrider Foundation canvas bags with ocean motives. The bags are theirs to keep and use - AND RE-USE! Our friends from the Newport Beach Chapter of Surfrider Foundation will b

Dear Amigos, We are very happy and proud to share the good news that our founder and president Dr. Ana Jimenez-Hami's hard work will be recognized with the first ever Orange County Above-and-Beyond Award bestowed by the Angel Light Academy. Dr. Ana will receive the award during the first ever Angel Light Award Orange County event on October 4th, 2011 at 5:30PM at Fleming's Steakhouse in Fashion Island, Newport Beach. Please call 866 302 6435 to purchase tickets or enquire about more details about the event. Very best regards, Marion @ OCCTAC

Dear Amigas and Amigos, Come visit us at the Festival of Children at South Coast Plaza! Our booth is on Level 1, just East of the Carousel, in front of the Sees Candies store. Saturday and Sunday, September 3 and 4 and 10 and 11 from Noon to 4. Our Community Art Workshop at Carousel Court will take place September 18th from Noon to 4PM. See you there! Marion @ OCCTAC

Dear Amigos! We are happy to share the good news that we have been invited to share our story at the Festival of Children at South Coast Plaza this coming September. Look for our booth the first two weekends of September. More details to come soon. See you there! Marion@OCCTAC

We are very happy to congratulate OCCTAC board member and former Board President Felipe Heras! Felipe will be honored with the prestigious OC Human Relations Award in a ceremony on May 5th. OC Human Relations says: "Felipe Heras, a remarkable Santa Ana resident, is a dedicated advocate for families of children with disabilities, particularly those of limited resources.  Through his volunteer efforts with the Orange County Children’s Therapeutic Arts Center, Felipe has become a role model for parents and an outstanding leader in the Latino community." Felipe, we know how much you have done for all the kids and families at OCCTAC and we are so very happy to have you on board!

  THE SITUATION In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station , on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.  During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.  After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing.  He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule. About 4 minutes later: The violinist received his first dollar.  A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk. At 6 minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again. At 10 minutes: A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly.  The kid stopped to look at the vi