Iberia Parish students were presented awards and prizes at Cyr-Gates Community Center Thursday evening as the organizers of the New Iberia Recreation Department’s “Great Portraits or Scenes: A Youth Art Festival” held the award ceremony.

The art program pitched a challenge to students across the parish to find a book or magazine as a reference to draw a picture of a significant person or event in African American history.

Organizer Krystal Boyance said the festival started in 1995 with Judge Charles Porter, who was interested in putting on an event to encourage reading for Black History Month.

“The program had shut down for funding, but we were able to relaunch the program,” Boyance said.

The socially distanced event comes at a time when the Teche Area has had to deal with a drastic cutback of Black History month programs, marches and forums due to the COVID-19 virus creating too much danger for the usual programs to go on.

The youth art program was able to bring in children from all over the parish to the teen side of Cyr-Gates Community Center for an educational and fun Black History Month event while still being able to socially distance and maintain safe practices.

Susan Dorsey, one of the three judges that combed through the submissions, said she was pleasantly surprised with the quality of submissions that children had turned in.

“”We got together in this room and looked at everything from Pre-k to 12th grade,” Dorsey said. “Some of them were really artistic, some of them were imaginative and some of them had a lot of creativity. “

Dorsey said the judges began to look for those qualities when judging the pictures that were drawn for the program.

“We could have 10 Rosa Parks pictures but if there was one that was different or had a little more detail that could be the deciding thing,” Dorsey added.

Several local organizations were also crucial to putting the event on. Dorsey is a member of the Iberia African American Historical Society which sponsored the youth art festival for the first year in a row.

Another judge, Warren White, represented the West End Council of Neighborhood Associations, which also aided organizers into putting on the event.

“We work hand in hand with Parks and Recreation when they need our help,” White said. “We love to get involved, especially with the youth because they are our future.”

This year’s entries included scenes of historical police brutality protests, portraits of prominent black leaders like Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges as well as several pictures of Amanda Gorman.