For this year’s Caffrey Welles Fine Arts Award despite students being remote for most of the year due to a global pandemic we received 12 projects from 13 applicants and awarded $3,050. The winners of this years award are:
First Place ($1,500): Grovefall’s Treasures
The first place winner of the 2020-2021 Caffrey Welles Fine Arts Award was Anyssa Day for her novella Grovefall’s Treasures. Her work can be found here.
Second Place ($600): Travel Down
Jessica Sosa won second place with her artwork responding to the current global pandemic and political climate. Her work can be found here.
Third Place ($300): Wire Jewelry
Samaria Brown won third place for her wire jewelry. Her video documenting her process can be found here.
Fourth Place ($150): How Bikes Can Save Our Cities
Samuel Conklin won fourth place for his video on the benefits of biking. His video can be found here.
Fifth Place ($100): JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Inspired Dress
Lily Grymko won fifth place with her JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure inspired dress. Her dress can be found here.
Participation Awards ($50):
Earning unranked participation Awards for this year were Nufsat Tasnim for their poetry and drawing found here, Joshua Cisneros for their drawing found here, Tatayana Dates and Alison Watkins for their painting found here, Sophie Styczen for their painting found here, Brooke Chapple for their poetry found here, Cecelia Pugh for their painting found here and Taylor Hall for their poetry and writing found here.
Speech Given at the Awards Ceremony:
Meyers held its last ever awards ceremony this year and this is the speech that Adam Iseman gave at it:
I’m Adam Iseman and I’m here to present the Iseman Foundation awards which include both the Butwin Elias Science and Technology Award (or the BEST award) and the Caffrey Welles Fine Arts Awards. These awards require students to complete an extracurricular project in either STEM or the Arts, document it and submit it online. Students are free to pick something that they are excited about and interested in and explore it further. A panel of alumni judges then evaluates them and we give everyone that applied at least a participation award of $50 and higher cash prizes for 5th thru 1st place. This is the 9th year we are giving out the BEST award and the 5th year that we are giving out the Arts award. What a year this has been too…
This past year has been anything but normal and really the only reason why we are able to be here today is because of science. Within the last year a completely new and deadly virus has been isolated, its genetic sequence has been decoded and then a cure for it has been assembled from scientist manipulating the very basic building blocks of life to help our bodies effectively fight off an otherwise deadly disease. For all of this progress to have happened in around nine months is an absolutely amazing scientific achievement. By comparison the last time that we had a pandemic of this same scale was in 1918 a decade or so before this school was built and epidemiology was still in in its infancy. In 1918 we were never able to analyze or even attempt to cure the strain of influenza that was running rampant and it just killed people until it had either killed you or you were lucky enough to recover from it. Had we taken this same course with COVID 19 rather than the about 600,000 deaths we have experienced in the US we would be on track for somewhere on the order of 2-6 million deaths depending on how overwhelmed our hospital systems got. In just about every way I’d much rather be living through the COVID 19 pandemic where we have science on our side than in 1918 where doctors were basically helpless in the face of this disease.
Additionally, the first radio broadcasts in the US were not started until around 1920 so people going through the 1918 pandemic were not even able to listen to the radio as a distraction. They definitely were not able to zoom with friends, call distant relatives or binge watch Netflix for hours on end. I honestly don’t know how they stayed sane through a pandemic without access to the arts and entertainment that we enjoy today. While the scientific achievements that we have made in the last 100 years are extremely impressive the amount of Art that people can access instantaneously is also another reason why I’d much rather be dealing with COVID 19 than living through 1918 pandemic.
Because of the tremendous importance of science and the arts to our everyday life I’m extremely excited to offer these awards each year that hopefully help to inspire the next generation of scientists and artists that will continue to make our world a better place to live in. And so, lets actually get to presenting this year’s awards!
Because of how difficult this year was on the STEM program here at Meyers we only received a single applicant for this year’s BEST award. And so, the winner of the 2020-2021 Butwin Elias Science and Technology award who will be receiving a check from the Iseman Foundation for $1,500 for his game that demonstrates the basics of electric propulsion is Michael Andrews!
For this year’s Caffrey Welles Fine Arts Award we received 12 projects from 13 applicants. Starting with the unranked participation awards of $50 our first participation award goes to:
Nufsat Tasnim for their poetry and drawing. Joshua Cisneros for their drawing. Tatayana Dates and Alison Watkins for their painting. Sophie Styczen for their painting. Brooke Chapple for their poetry. Cecelia Pugh for their painting. Taylor Hall for their poetry and writing.
And now in 5th place winning an award of $100 for their anime inspired dress is Lily Grymko! In 4th place winning an award of $150 for their video on biking is Samuel Conklin! In 3rd place winning an award of $300 for their video on the jewelry they have been making is Samaria Brown!In 2nd place winning an award of $600 for their painting showing how the past year has affected them is Jessica Sosa!
And finally the winner of the 2020-2021 Caffrey Welles Fine Arts award earning an award of $1,500 for their novella Grove Fall’s Treasures is Anyssa Day!
Thank you all so much for your time! I’m look forward to all of the awesome projects that we get next year at the new school!
Donors Who Are Totally Awesome:
The Iseman Foundation is funded by awesome people who give their hard earned money to help encourage kids to start their journeys in science and technology and the arts. Thank you so much to everyone that continues to support getting kids interested in starting pursuits that they will explore for the rest of their lives!