We’ve been cooking up the concept of broadening the reach of children’s philanthropy by starting a movement of Clothesline Art Shows around our region and …hold onto your hats – throughout the nation! We have piloted and tested a few of these “Clotheslines” over the past few months with wide range of kids: a teenager’s Bat Mitzvah project, a birthday party sleep-over for 5 seven-year-old girls, a whole inner city charter school dividing funds they raised between their own art room needs and a poor school in their neighborhood.
Recently, we were invited to try one at the famous Manyunk Arts Festival –a two-day affair that draws 200,000 people. We figured we were ready to try something on a bigger scale to see how it goes.
It went. Went well. Actually, the kids “hit it outta the park”. They raised more than $2,000 for art supplies in two days!
We believe that “Pablo’s Clothesline Art Sales” are a great way to engage hundreds of thousands of children in bold, active philanthropy throughout the country. We have been practicing, tweaking, editing, refining, and listening to kids, their grown-ups and the retired art teachers who have been helping us design this. We are ready to make a firm commitment to take this out into the world and are actively seeking sponsorship, funding and donations to create a strong infrastructure within Fresh Artists to administratively insure its success.
This is the way we work. Get a zany idea, brainstorm over coffee on our Giant Whiteboard, get a group of art teachers together and kick the idea around some more. Take it apart, put it together differently. Add. Subtract. Ask some kids and schools to try it out. Get feedback from all stakeholders. Drink some more coffee. Figure out how much money it will take to go to scale.
Then march out into the world and find investors: people and corporations who want to invest in children. And zany, entrepreneurial ideas. (What do you think they said when they heard about Google? You want to do WHAT?!!!)
The idea is simple, but powerful.
Kids make art.
Hang the art on a clothesline or a fence.
Get folks to stop by and see what they’ve been up to.
Ask them to make a donation so they can deliver art supplies to schools in need.
People take the kids’ art home to enjoy.
Kids fill empty art room shelves of schools suffering with slashes in arts funding.
While kids are filling their hearts with purpose. And having fun.
We believe we met at least 100,000 of the 200,000 people who attended! And everyone loved the children’s efforts and strong, clear message.
We are looking for people who would love to invest in several hundred thousand kids by helping us take Clothesline Art Sales to scale. Our phone number is 215-920-3317.
It’s a proven winner! And so are the kids! The bottom line is KIDS!
