Art on the Green gifts art supplies, music funds to local schools

COEUR d’ALENE — Creativity is getting a boost in local schools, compliments of the Citizens' Council for the Arts, Art on the Green and the Sue and Patrick Flammia Endowment.

Art on the Green treasurer Anne Solomon and her team have been visiting schools in Coeur d'Alene and four in Post Falls, donating $500 in art supplies to those that did not receive a gift from Art on the Green last year. The deliveries are continuing this week.

"What we’ve decided with Art on the Green is to use our proceeds to give back to schools, particularly because art is so important to students,” Solomon said. "Art teachers are amazing but often lack funding."

The Sue and Patrick Flammia Endowment — established in 2017 in memory of the Flammias, longtime Coeur d’Alene residents who helped start Art on the Green — is donating $300 to music programs in Coeur d'Alene schools. These funds will help buy instruments and fulfill other items on music teachers' wish lists.

In Vern Harvey's art class at Hayden Meadows Elementary, the Art on the Green gifts are supporting a mosaic project for more than 90 fifth-graders.

"Each get a square foot to design a mosaic," Harvey said Monday. "The project is daunting and bright color tiles are much needed."

He said Art on the Green generously provided his students with boxes of red, blue, orange, green and yellow tiles that the students can safely break up and use for their mosaics.

“It is donations like this that give opportunities to students to create art that is challenging and long lasting, as opposed to the 45-minute lesson with paper and markers,” Harvey said. “My students are fully engaged, inspired and amazed as to what they can create."

The Citizens' Council for the Arts is the nonprofit that sponsors Art on the Green, a much-loved community art and music festival that will celebrate 52 years this summer. Art on the Green is annually held on the North Idaho College campus. This year's event will be the weekend of July 31.

The volunteer-run Art on the Green returns its profits to the community as a way of saying "thank you" for the support the festival receives from the public. Giving back this year includes providing $500 of art supplies to local schools to keep kids’ imaginations thriving.

"We appreciate our teachers and their amazing creativity with kids," Solomon said. "We believe that the creation and appreciation of art will benefit our kids for their whole life."

The Sue and Patrick Flammia Endowment is also sponsoring the Spokane Symphony to play at NIC for local students today and Wednesday.

Info: www.artonthegreen.com