|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Making a colorful
difference By John Kenyon NEW YORK — Iowa native Jennifer Stewart, found a distinctive, colorful way to help with relief efforts after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, and all she did was go to work. Stewart, an Audubon native and University of Iowa graduate, dresses up like the Statue of Liberty, performing at corporate functions, parties and conventions. She wears face-paint, a headpiece and a long, green robe for the part. The get-up has put her face in the papers throughout the United States, including the Iowa City Gazette on Thursday. Stewart said it seemed logical, after the attacks, to take her act to the street to raise money. "I stood out there with a bucket and a sign that Thursday and in the first two hours, I made $700," she said. Stewart has Iowa to thank for her profession. After graduating from the UI in 1984 with a degree in general studies, she worked at an area care facility teaching art. One of her clients said she looked like the Statue of Liberty. Soon after, she heard about a national Statue of Liberty look-alike contest. She entered the 1986 contest and won. She made appearances for a year as part of the win, then headed to New York University for graduate study in art therapy. "I moved to New York for grad school, never imagining doing it again," she said. "But I didn't even make it through the first year of school, and this has been pretty much a full-time thing now for 14 years. The bulk of the work involves just standing there." She set a goal of raising $10,000 from her street performances, then raised that to $11,000 to reflect the Sept. 11 date. She has already topped that goal, raising $12,000 to date. She said she gave $4,000 to the Red Cross in New York the Monday after the attacks and has given substantial funds to her neighborhood fire department, which lost firefighters in the World Trade Center collapse. It takes Stewart an hour to get dressed as the statue and another hour to clean up. She used theatrical paint, much easier to deal with than the house paint she started with while in Iowa. It was another prodding from Iowa that led to her current relief efforts. After the attacks, an Iowa friend called and said she should go out as the Statue of Liberty to help soothe people. "He said, 'Jennifer, you have this thing you do and
it would be a great service.'" |
|
next
LL fundraising article