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At the end of a ten year period, with five "Salutes" behind us, the Brooklyn Chapter gave a reception to honor those who had served a judges in the auditions and others who had counseled and supported the Chapter in various ways. This occasion also highlighted the implementation of a new program, concentrating on one area of creativity - Art. Vigorous screening of the competing young artists produced nine interracial young people between the ages of 14 and 18 who were chosen to exhibit in the Community Gallery in Brooklyn Museum. The show included paintings, photographs, and graphics. An exciting side event for these teenagers was the viewing of their works by a nation-wide conference of museum curators, meeting in New York at that time.

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An unusual follow-up to this event was the exhibition of 100 paintings in the Saranac Lake Gallery of Dorothy Yepez. Doris Guinier was responsible for augmenting the works of the nine Community Gallery exhibitors with those of equally talented teenagers. Out of this special group of exhibitors, several were cited for excellence.

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Also, in May, 1970, a Human Relations Course was set up with Brooklyn Links as sponsor and the Youth Services Agency and Long Island University as cooperating organizations. The Youth Services Agency screened the applicants and narrowed the group to 15. Long Island University provided the place. Brooklyn Links paid for the professional leader (selected by Long Island representative, Dr. Aaron Brown, connecting Link). In addition, Link members served as surrogate parents observers. Their importance was best noted in the family-style luncheons served after the "rap" sessions. In these sessions, they were able to talk about their problems and exchange views on vital, current social issues. We feel that the youths gained valuable insights by learning to respect the ideas of others and through the challenge of actual confrontation with realities of life under professional guidance of the leader. One of the most important aspects of the session as expressed by the youthful participants were the luncheons. Adults and teenagers served one another and talked together. It was their first exposure to seated meals where adults shared with them conversation and food. This project keynoted the need for counseling for career information and productive living.

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