SPARTA, Mich. — Art is everything to Charlotte Ambrose.
For more than two decades, Ambrose shared her passion with students at Sparta High School in room 28. Now retired, she's still working to showcase the importance of creativity and expression through the arts.
"If you think about it, you sit on an artist's design; you live in an artist's world; you drive an artist's car. And so there are things that are so important in the world, needing an artist's creativity," Ambrose told FOX 17. "It seemed to me that I was always ... being asked to cut my budget. And I thought, 'They don't realize what we do in this classroom.' And it's not just using a crayon and busy work, but there's critical thinking going on there."
Ambrose asked her students to submit anonymous questionnaires over the years, to paint a picture of art's impact on their lives.
She vowed not to read the responses until after she retired. A recent surgery gave her a push to revisit the project.
"All of these comments were in a box; I didn't read them until almost 30 years later," she explained. "I decided if I didn't do it now, it would never get shown the light of day."
Ambrose compiled their thoughts into a book called HeART and Soul.
She's presented it to the superintendent of Sparta Public Schools and the school board.
Ambrose hopes the collection will motivate funding for the arts to continue.
"I want [leaders] to realize how powerful the arts are in keeping young people who might be failing in school because they're not ... their thoughts aren't addressed," she said. "If I can save one student's life, to be positive about life itself, I think I've accomplished something."
Ambrose hopes to share the book with other local superintendents across West Michigan, and potentially nationwide.
