VC student’s Mother Teresa drawing gets praise and attention

Lilly Cao is an artist. She loves to draw and she loves to dance. Cao hopes to one day be a professional dancer. Now, she has a chance to become a professional artist.
Cao, a junior at Vermilion Catholic High School, recently completed a pencil drawing in Nealy Atkins art class at VC. When students complete projects, they display them in the main halls on campus.
Cao drew Mother Teresa of Calcutta. After the drawing was put on display along with the other student works. It began drawing attention. People were asking about purchasing it.
“Mrs. Nealy told me that there were a few people wondering if Mother Teresa was for sale,” said Cao. “I hardly believed her, but it was the truth.”
With Atkins help, Cao has made prints of her drawing and is now selling them for $50 each.
She plans to use the money to help pay for a mission trip to see where Mother Teresa lived in India in the near future.
“It is not enough to simply donate money and know that it is going to a good cause,” she said. “I have been blessed with a fortunate life, but too often, it is taken for granted. I felt that the only fitting option for the proceeds of the portrait of Mother Teresa was to visit her home on a mission trip. The experience would be a major culture shock, but that is exactly what I am looking for: to be relinquished from the self-indulgent grip that the world has on me. I am praying that Mother Teresa’s intercession will inspire generosity towards my goal.”
A limited number of signed prints are available for a minimum donation of $50. Donations may be sent to Vermilion Catholic 425 Park Ave Abbeville, LA 70510.
“The world spins on the ideas of great thinkers, but it thrives on great thinkers with big hearts. Needless to say, Mother Teresa of Calcutta constitutes as one of the latter great thinkers.”