In 2008, Nashville-based photographer Jeremy Cowart founded a global humanitarian movement called Help Portrait. In 2012, a friend asked me to volunteer at a Help Portrait event in Manhattan, KS, and I was hooked.
This annual event now takes place on the first Saturday in December across 60+ countries. The mission is to bring together volunteer photographers, editors, hair stylists and makeup artists to provide professional, printed portraits for families in need.
A few years later, I connected a group of talented creatives from college and decided to launch our own chapter in Lawrence, Kansas.
Donations poured in, grocery stores provided food, venues donated their space, and our volunteer team grew significantly every year as the word spread in the low-income community in Lawrence.
The majority of these families had never had portraits of themselves, or their kids. The response and gratitude we heard because of the impact this day had on them was beyond our expectations.
We setup a system that tracked them through check-in into hair and makeup, over to a professional photographer, the editing team, printing station and framing team. For about two hours, they got to focus on feeling like the star of the show, enjoy a meal, and leave with several copies of printed family portraits to cherish.
The first year we served 27 families in three hours, and by year four we served 65.
The stories that were told and the connections that were made with these families is what kept our volunteer team coming back each year, with new ideas of ways to improve and expand our system and what we could offer.
By year four we had a team of 46. Then the pandemic hit.
I have a dream of one day running a chapter in Kansas City. Until then, enjoy a short video for a glimpse of this incredibly special day produced by the talented and generous Marc Havener of Resonate Pictures.