Gratitude Journals

Many Paint Love projects bring a social emotional learning theme- one of our favorite project themes is gratitude.  Kids living in tumultuous circumstances such as poverty can experience anxiety that impacts their capacity to move through the world confidently. Projects focused on thankfulfulness can have a particularly positive impact on young people like the kids we serve, by wiring their brains to always be on the look out for things that are good. Gratitude journals are a fantastic way to engage kids in finding good, and physically writing or drawing about their gratitude (rather than just thinking about it) is actually proven to improve optimism about the future and improve sleep, combatting anxiety. 

We’ve done several gratitude journal projects, two of which we’re excited to share with you here:

Journals with Kate’s Club

Artist: Rory Hawkins (Catlanta)

Atlanta's favorite feline-themed artist extraordinaire, Catlanta (AKA Rory Hawkins), visited the teens group at Kate's Club to talk about gratitude and create these awesome journals! Kate's Club offers a safe space to face grief for young people who have experienced the loss of a parent of sibling. Creating unique, personalized journals just for capturing our gratitude is a favorite activity here at Paint Love. It's been proven that keeping a gratitude journal and writing for just a few minutes during the day or simply jotting down a couple bullet points about things that made you feel happy or thankful before you go to bed at night, can dramatically change the way you engage the people and world around you. Gratitude journals help lower stress levels, and help establish habits seeking the good in every day.

Journals with See Beautiful Club

Artist: Liz Carson

Written By PL intern Yesha Shah

Paint Love Artist, Liz Carson, who also works at one of our other partners, Kate’s Club, started the project by asking what gratitude means to each person. She demonstrated how to make an accordion-style journal and what kinds of things they can draw in it. Kids could draw people, places, and things that they're grateful for. 

The unique thing that Liz suggested is that instead of drawing people they’re grateful for, they draw something that represents them. Something that is personal and unique to them. Some students drew animals to represent their parents, others drew sports equipment,  or even superheroes. It was so much fun talking with the kids and seeing how they depict the important people in their lives!