Mending Spirit

Mending Spirit is an organization that brings art, art activities, and artists to places in the Greater Philadelphia area where the spirit needs healing. We believe that even the smallest difference created in a day or in an environment can have an effect that ripples out and touches many.

The sites where Mending Spirit projects are placed are often hugely underserved, where clients as well as caretakers are stressed and traumatized, and where there is little to no funding, time, or energy for art or creative activity.

Mending Spirit seeks to bring healing through connection to beauty, color and light, movement and song, community.

With help from donations and volunteers, we can reach out to more artists and more facilities, making art for healing widespread in the world.

From founder D'vorah Horn:

"I was installing paintings in a nursing home and I was struck by the strong emotional impact of hanging the art and interacting with the residents and staff. In each facility, activity directors work hard to bring purposeful activity and entertainment to these residents with understandably limited budgets. Staff works hard to care for residents and the result is stress. Often the primary source of stimulation and activity is limited to the challenging physical care the residents were receiving, the food they were eating and the ever present television. I began to speak about this work with visual artists, musicians, a flower arranger, a dancer, and I was met with an overwhelming response of desire from them to join me. This is when I decided to create Mending Spirit so that we could join artists together in art for healing. I believe artists need financial support if they are going to be able to consistently give their time, their work, and themselves to this project. I wanted to create a sustainable organization, one that would support art for healing and all of those involved.”