CLEVELAND — A unique art college scholarship program at Vermilion High School had to be put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Now, the teacher behind the program is getting creative to bring it back.

What You Need To Know

  • Christen Schneid started the "Drawing the Future" scholarship program at Vermilion High School 11 years ago

  • Postcards were all created by students from Vermilion schools

  • You can purchase the postcards by emailing CSchneid@vermilionschools.org

With each brushstroke, students at Vermilion High School are creating miniature masterpieces to help a fellow art student pay for the high cost of attending an arts college or university. 

"It’s great to be able to help people who can’t afford to go to college for arts," said Sabrina Lian, a senior at Vermilion High School.

"I think it’s important because college is really expensive, especially like art college, so it’s important to help out as much as you can in any way even if it’s like an art project. It’s amazing how much how many we’ve sold to help for the scholarship," said Jessica Herchler, a senior at Vermilion High School.

Art teacher and filmmaker Christen Schneid started the "Drawing the Future" scholarship program at Vermilion high school 11 years ago, but over the past two years, the coronavirus pandemic has canceled the school’s fundraising shows. So Schneid found other options.

In the past, students would showcase their art works in a school-made magazine, sold for the scholarship.

"Usually we sell these in our fine arts fair and we make money off of these. This is a donation that I have a person that prints them and binds them for me and then we sell them for them for a 100% profit", said Schneid.

Besides fundraising, the program’s other goal is to raise awareness about careers in art. 

"We had Muralists come in from out of our city that created these huge murals and they were commissioned for a job, and I think our students — we have a lot of talent in this class and throughout the high school that can be the next ones to do murals around the world," Schneid said. "I just want students to be exposed to all the different jobs out there."