The Marisa Tufaro Foundation is honored to announce that Shannon Ozard, a fifth grader from Woodland Intermediate School, has been selected as one of seven students from Middlesex County to receive a Marisa Tufaro Memorial Art Scholarship.
The scholarship entitles Shannon 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.
The Zimmerli Summer Art Camp allows artists of various ability levels to interact and study with some of New Jersey’s best teaching artists. Wes Sherman, who holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts and is a highly successful independent artist, heads the Summer Art Camp faculty.
A natural and gifted artist whose precocious talent belies her young age, Shannon is a student of Woodland Intermediate School art teacher Janine Kupcho.
Described as reflective and gentle, those qualities shine through in Shannon’s artwork.
With a passion for drawing and painting, Shannon effortlessly creates from imagination and observation, sketching lightly, quickly, feathery, yet meticulously, to make her artistic visions come to life.
Shannon often uses innovation to take her art projects to another level, whether incorporating previously learned techniques or putting her own spin on classroom lessons. Shannon’s artwork always stands out because of her intrinsic talent.
The Marisa Tufaro Memorial Art Scholarship is made possible through donations to The Marisa Tufaro Foundation from a member of the Greater Middlesex Conference Baseball Coaches Association, who wishes to remain anonymous, and other generous benefactors.
As a student at the Zimmerli in 2012, Marisa herself was the recipient of a generous art scholarship for her achievement in camp and based on her potential. Our foundation is honored to have an opportunity to pay that kindness forward.
Students who are Middlesex County residents between the ages of 7 and 14 are eligible for the scholarship. The application deadline for this year’s award was Feb. 1. Our scholarship committee selected the winners from a pool of candidates who shared Marisa’s passion and talent for art.
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.”
Marisa, who would have graduated in 2021 from Edison High School, was born with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome, a complex cardiac defect which required six open-heart surgeries. Marisa developed two life-threatening conditions that necessitated a heart transplant. The transplant was supposed to extend her life, but tragically cut it short when a postoperative complication developed into a rare form of cancer (post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder) to which Marisa succumbed in 2017 following a valiant battle. She was just 13 years old.
Despite being hospitalized for more than two years and maintaining hundreds of doctor’s appointments, Marisa was an honor roll student involved in myriad extracurricular activities who lived a vibrant life that inspired.
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 Marisa’s untimely passing to propose the idea of an art 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 a memorial service) 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 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.”
Marisa’s ambition was to attend an art 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 a month after her untimely passing.
Established just over five and a half years ago, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation has already made a profound impact, donating more than a quarter of a million dollars and spearheading multiple community initiatives to fulfill its mission of helping pediatric patients and other children in need throughout the greater Middlesex County area.
The nonprofit has also donated thousands of toys, nonperishable food items, winter jackets, baby supplies, and other items upon which it has placed no monetary value.
In addition, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation has awarded $26,500 in college academic scholarships to 38 exceptional Middlesex County high school students who advance the nonprofit’s mission, and 20 scholarships to elementary and middle school students to attend the Zimmerli Art Museum’s Summer Art Camp.