Marisa Tufaro Memorial Art Scholarship nominations being accepted

Applications for the annual Marisa Tufaro Memorial Art Scholarship are being accepted until February 1, 2025.

Students who are Middlesex County residents between the ages of 7 and 14 are eligible for the scholarship, which will afford recipients an opportunity to attend a weeklong art camp this summer at Rutgers University’s Zimmerli Art Museum, where Marisa previously honed her craft and where her artwork was once displayed at an exhibit.

Marisa at the Zimmerli Arts Museum in 2012 being awarded a generous Summer Arts Scholarship for her achievement in camp and based on her potential

The camp will run for five consecutive weeks from June 30 through August 1 (there is no camp on July 4). Scholarship recipients can elect to participate in half-day sessions (mornings or afternoons) for any one of those weeks.

The museum’s summer art camp, which began more than two decades ago, traditionally adds new classes each year. The schedule of classes from which scholarship recipients can choose will be available in February 2025.

The Zimmerli Art Museum’s Summer Art Camp allows artists (ages 7-14) of various ability levels to explore their creative side and develop new skills alongside wonderful teaching artists in a unique setting only an art museum can provide. Children often find inspiration in the museum’s collection as they explore the galleries.

According to Rutgers University’s website: “During the hot days of summer, the Zimmerli is the place to be for budding young artists. Each year, new classes are added to stimulate, challenge and delight both veteran and newcomers who participate in the program. The Zimmerli continues to offer its popular classes in painting, drawing, pastels, watercolors, sculpture, and an art ‘sampler’ class.”

Scholarship applicants must share Marisa’s passion and talent for art. Only an art teacher from a student’s school can nominate scholarship candidates. Only one student per school can be nominated.

Nominations must be submitted no later than February 1, 2025 in the form of an art teacher’s letter of recommendation on behalf of the candidate via email to cgtufaro2@gmail.com.

Parents and/or legal guardians of scholarship recipients are responsible for providing transportation to and from the Zimmerli Art Museum, located at 71 Hamilton Street in New Brunswick.

The scholarship has been made possible through a donation to The Marisa Tufaro Foundation on behalf of a member of the Greater Middlesex Conference Baseball Coaches Association who wishes to remain anonymous.

Edison High School baseball coach Vinnie Abene, past president of the Greater Middlesex Conference Baseball Coaches Association, said a coach from the league called him immediately after attending Marisa’s wake and proposed the idea of an arts scholarship.

“There are a lot of great guys in our association and there were a lot of ideas that were thrown around at the time,” said Abene. “There was one particular coach that was really moved by what he saw at the wake with the amount of art projects that Marisa had accomplished and created. That truly inspired him to have a unique idea. He called me the same night as the wake and told me what his idea was, and he certainly made it a point that he wanted to keep it anonymous because it wasn’t about him. He just wanted to make sure that some worthy students would use the money toward an art scholarship.”

A representative of the Zimmerli Arts Museum said the scholarship in Marisa’s name was an outstanding and fitting tribute.

In 2012, Marisa was awarded a generous Summer Arts Scholarship based on her achievement in camp and her potential.

Marisa’s ambition was to attend an arts college, and while God’s plan did not allow her to make it to one, her work did.

A piece Marisa constructed with a New York City School of Visual Arts graduate student during an art therapy session at New York Presbyterian’s Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital was displayed at the “Your Turn” exhibit at the college’s Flatiron Gallery in Manhattan in February 2017, days after Marisa’s untimely passing.