How We Roll: Heart for the Arts

By: Meredyth Censullo

St. Petersburg, Florida – This Saturday, you’re invited to check out a unique display of “art cars” in St. Petersburg. The one-of-a-kind moveable masterpieces are coming from across the country to take part in a celebration of the arts. The driving force behind the car show and arts celebration is a mother’s love for her daughter.

In the kitchen of her St. Petersburg home, Barb Bornemann shuffles through pictures of her daughter, Jeannie, and holds up an image of the little girl, dressed as a clown.

Barb Bornemann: “She was definitely a character. She loved to sing, she loved to pretend."

Barb explains that Jeannie’s constant smile belied the challenges she faced daily. The adopted daughter of Barb and her husband, Bill, was born with congenital heart disease and a kidney disorder. But the little girl drew strength from her love of the arts.

Barb: "She just carried a song in her heart all the time, and that joy, I know, got her through everything in her life."

Jeannie's song-filled heart stopped beating two years ago, when the 18-year-old girl was waiting for a heart transplant – the second in her life. She underwent her first heart transplant at age 13.

Barb: “I felt like something good had to come out of her death, because I didn't think that she could be a person here and have people be sad about her loss. I knew something joyful had to come from it."

Barb has established the Jeannie Bornemann "Heart for the Arts" Foundation. Her goal is to provide special needs children with scholarships to attend arts programs, like those offered at the Creative Clay Cultural Arts Center in St. Petersburg.

Grace-Anne Alfiero, Executive Director, Creative Clay Cultural Arts Center: “It is great for kids, especially those with special needs, to be involved in different types of expression classes- different ways to be creative. It is a way for them to have something meaningful in the community."

Barb says the Celebration of the Arts Festival, featuring a car she has painted herself, that she wants the community to adorn with written messages of love, will be the first step towards getting Jeannie's foundation off the ground and putting a song in every kids' heart.

Barb: “Music, and the arts, performing arts and visual arts was what Jeannie could do and feel really good about herself, and that's what all children should have."

The Heart for the Arts Festival is Saturday at Suncoast Cathedral, 2300 62^nd Avenue N., St. Petersburg, beginning at 3 p.m. The event will feature art and dance lessons, music, hot-air-balloon rides, food and more.

At 7:30, the 1960s band The Vogues, one of Jeannie’s favorite groups, will perform in concert. Tickets for the concert are $15.

For more information, visit http://jeanniebornemannfoundation.org.