Partners
The Children’s Fund of the Upper Valley is Delighted to Collaborate with the Following Partners
The Courtyard by Marriott at Centerra features rotating exhibitions of children's art in our business library and in one of our conference rooms. Exhibitors to date include the AVA (Alliance for the Visual Arts) Gallery of Lebanon, NH and the Plainfield, NH elementary schools. For more information about exhibiting children's art at the hotel, please contact Jenny Williams at jenny.williams@valley.net.
Renowned artist Jesse Blanchard—who grew up in Norwich and now lives and works in Santa Fe, NM with his wife Maggie Orem Blanchard—has donated a series of five etchings featured behind the front desk at the new Courtyard. Each etching uses the same matrix but is printed with a different color and then painted and drawn on for added effect. Blanchard was born 12 weeks premature in 1974, and spent 10 weeks in the NICU at CHaD. As one of NICU’s very first patients, he feels a special kinship with CHaD. In 2001 he put together a fundraising event selling his artwork to benefit both the Parents Council, a support group for parents with children in the NICU, and the DHMC Arts Program.
Local artist and Marion Cross Elementary school art teacher Tracy Smith has made 100 “Stars of Hope” to help celebrate the opening. Smith creates the unique fused glass ornamental stars as a way of reaching out to others. She has gifted or sold at cost thousands of the stars to hospitals all over the country, from the DHMC Breast Imaging Center to the Bon Secours-Stuart Hospital in Richmond, VA. The Children’s Fund has purchased 70 Stars of Hope at cost from Smith and has gifted one Star of Hope to each family with a child staying at CHaD the night of our opening celebration. Stars of Hope are available for sale at the front desk of the Lebanon Courtyard by Marriott. Hundreds have been sold since the hotel opening in 2006, with a portion of each sale benefitting the Children's Fund.