Ministrations: Giving Back with a Brush

For Sidney Aldridge Bonnet ’75, a retired pediatric hospitalist turned artist, landscape painting is more than a creative outlet—it is her way to give back to a deeply personal cause. For 22 years, Sidney’s son John, who has cerebral palsy and developmental delays, has lived at Marbridge, a nonprofit residential community in Manchaca, Texas. Since 1953, Marbridge has offered transitional and lifetime care for adults with developmental disabilities. John moved there right after high school. “The community is extraordinary,” Sidney says. “I have never seen a culture that is so beautiful and accepting.”

Texas-born Sidney discovered Wellesley College on a visit to see her brother at Harvard. “He took me out to Wellesley. And I said, ‘You can go to school here? What? Count me in.’” Though she initially considered medical school, art pulled her in another direction. “I took that damn art history course and fell in love so hard,” she recalls. “I took every art history course I could lay my hands on.” Still drawn to health care, she eventually returned to medicine.

After retiring, she turned back to her passion for art and began painting in earnest about seven years ago. Her brother commissioned a landscape and wanted to pay for it. “I said, OK, but give a donation to Marbridge.” That moment launched a mission. She now regularly paints landscapes on commission, with all the proceeds going to Marbridge. Her work—large, vivid landscapes often spanning four or five feet—has raised meaningful support. “About $45,000 worth,” she says. “That’s just in the last couple of years.” One recent painting even went to auction.

For Sidney, it’s a win-win. “People get a painting, and Marbridge benefits,” she says. “It’s been wonderful.”