Honoring Mrs. Vooss through Art
Students, faculty, family, and friends gathered on Thursday, May 18th at the first annual Melinda Vooss Creative Arts Festival. Melinda, the upper school art teacher at CBA who lost her battle with cancer last fall, joined the CBA community in 2020 during the pandemic and worked tirelessly to build relationships with her students while supporting them in their creative endeavors. She worked with students both virtually and in her classroom on campus. While only serving at CBA for a short time before the diagnosis, Vooss’ dedication to her students and her colleagues were deeply-rooted within the community. She is remembered for her bright smile, her big personality, and the warmth that radiated from within. To honor her legacy, the Vooss family has established the Melinda M. Vooss Artfully Yours Memorial Fund (MVAYM) to support and promote the power of art in education.
The annual student art show has been a long-standing tradition at CBA and this year the show was transformed into a beautiful festival featuring musical performances, poetry readings and maker creations, in addition to the visual arts. All of the pieces were crafted and performed by the school’s talented student artists and faculty members, and featured a variety of different mediums. The festival began with a special welcome from head of school, Dr. Jankowski, followed by a choral performance by the 5th grade accompanied by the middle school percussion ensemble, and a poem by upper school literature Synnika Lofton, award-winning poet, author and recording artist. Scott Vooss, Melinda’s husband, shared a message of gratitude followed by the upper school students presenting Mr. Vooss with a work they crafted to reflect their understanding of Melinda and the things she loved.
Scott and Melinda’s children, Zoey and Maxwell, are creators of the memorial fund honoring their mother. The mission of the fund is to honor Melinda’s legacy by supporting people and programs that awaken and inspire our inner artist and use the joy and power of art education as a platform to encourage curiosity, promote pride, spread positivity and build community. The fund will support the arts festival each year moving forward.
CBA is grateful to the Vooss family for their generosity in sharing the life and legacy of Melinda with our community, now and for years to come.
