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Gratitude is great for the soul.
The Elizabethton Arts and Cultural Alliance donated high usability T-shirts to the Elizabethton Water Resource: Construction division on Wednesday morning. 
Robert Benfield, secretary and founder of the nonprofit organization, said this donation was a way of expressing gratitude for these unsung heroes and their work during the COVID-19 pandemic. 
“They continue to work to provide water and wastewater services that allow the public to keep up with good hygiene,” he said. “The water resource people are on the front line of the pandemic.”
Benfield said this donation was met with appreciation.
This donation is part of the nonprofit’s theme this year of gratitude.
“Part of our theme this year is gratitude with the pandemic going on,” he explained. “This was our way of picking a segment of the community that affects so many people.”
The nonprofit’s latest work, Project Gratitude, is now in full swing. Through this project, people can send in square photos to the organization of what they are the most grateful for. Photos submitted will be used to create a mosaic. 
“When viewed from far away, it will look like one picture, but up close, you can see individual pictures people have sent in,” Benfield explained. 
Everyone is welcome to submit photos, and there is no limit. Pictures must be family friendly. 
Benfield spoke on the importance of this project. 
“Showing gratitude is one of those things all of us can do, and it’s universally understood,” he explained. “It’s one of those things that we get busy and forget about. Thinking about what we already have and what we are thankful for helps deal with other things that tend to bother us.”
Benfield said this project is great in serving as a reminder for what we already have. 
The project will be going on all year. Benfield said that once enough images are submitted, the mosaic will be created. If there are more pictures, more mosaics can be created. 
In addition to gratitude, the next project on the organization’s radar is called “Noodle Doodle.” This will be launched closer to Halloween. For younger age groups, it is a “surface art” activity. “In a nutshell it is using construction paper to make rubbings from textures found in the environment,” said Benfield. “Plaques, manhole covers, engravings or other objects are transferred to paper by covering the object with the paper and lightly rubbing a crayon on the surface of the paper.”
Images for Project Gratitude can be emailed to info@elizalliance.org. For more information, check out the organization’s Facebook page, or go to www.elizalliance.org.