The Cortona Italy Alumni Organization (C.I.A.O.) and alumna Carolyn Melbye have launched a postcard art project to exchange messages of support with the people of Cortona during the Coronavirus epidemic.  

Carolyn Melbye was a student in Cortona during the Spring and Summer of 2004, and is now an expressive arts therapist in Waltham, Massachusetts.  When she heard about how badly Italy has been affected by the virus, she was concerned for the people of Cortona and wanted to do something to help.  Together with our alumni organization, C.I.A.O., she has created the Cartoline per Cortona project.

UGA Cortona alumni and other friends of Cortona can make their own artistic postcard, or write a message on a pre-printed card, and mail it to a P.O. box address in the United States.  The postcards will be scanned front and back and posted, with translations into Italian, on the C.I.A.O. website. 

People in Cortona can make cards in return and drop them into the UGA-red Cartoline per Cortona postbox in front of Enoteca Molesini, from which they will be collected by UGA Cortona staff, scanned, translated into English, and also posted to the C.I.A.O. website.  We are tentatively planning an exhibition of all the postcards in Cortona this fall, which would subsequently travel to Athens, Georgia in January 2021 for display at the UGA Cortona 2020 Reunion Exhibition at the University of Georgia's Lamar Dodd School of Art.

Keep an eye on C.I.A.O.'s website, Facebook (@ugaciao) and Instagram (@ciaouga) to see all the postcards as they arrive!

Anyone who loves Cortona is invited to create their own artistic postcard, up to 4 1/2" x 6", or write a message on a pre-printed card, and mail it to:

Carolyn Melbye, P.O. Box 540236, Waltham, MA, 02454.

Carolyn will scan the front and back of every card and the images will be posted on the C.I.A.O. website.