ART4KIDS, Inc. receives $1,500 Grant Award from Festival of Arts

The Festival of Arts Foundation has awarded $1,500 to ART4KIDS, Inc. to provide art materials for children of Laguna Beach. Artist and art educator Pam Schader founded ART4KIDS, Inc. to provide art materials to help children process trauma through creative expression.

These Laguna Beach social service agencies submit wish lists of their preferred art materials; ART4KIDS, Inc. uses FOA funds to assemble each order to match their needs:

• Laguna Food Pantry

• Wayfinders Youth Shelter, Laguna Beach

• Laguna Beach Community Clinic

• Even Start preschool program

• Laguna Art Museum art studio program at Boys and Girls Club of Laguna Beach

For nine years, the Festival of Arts Foundation has funded grants for ART4KIDS, Inc. to provide quality art materials for children in distress in Laguna. “Kids’ faces just light up when we hand them an art pack,” said Anne Belyea, executive director of the Laguna Food Pantry.

“Art is life; we draw what is happening to us,” Schader said. “The drawing the child creates will likely show the distress, allowing the child to see its borders. The child can begin to see the trauma as an event and not the entire life experience. The drawing serves as a springboard for communication with facilitators.”

Since 2001, ART4KIDS, Inc. has provided art packs to homeless, abused, abandoned children and those in residential shelters, emergency services, trauma treatment programs, domestic violence shelters, hospitals, and clinics. More than 50 Orange County agencies are served each year, funded by individual donors and grants from local foundations.

ART4KIDS, Inc. was founded on September 11, 2001 by Pam Schader, M.A. She teaches drawing, painting and art history at Irvine Valley College. She operates ART4KIDS, Inc. from her home studio in Costa Mesa with a large contingent of volunteers. ART4KIDS, Inc. welcomes donors and volunteers to assemble artpacks, work at art booths and workshops, make handmade cards, and identify children in distress. Learn more at www.art4kidsinc.org.