Lemonade Stand

The kids had a lemonade stand fundraiser for Isobel's Clubhouse. They earned about $100 in 4 hours to donate it to CHAP and Isobel's Clubhouse. They had a lot of fun--it was such a hot day!

Picnic in the shade...guess who is running the stand while the kids are resting?

Art Camp at CHAP

This is Alyosha's first masterpiece--first of many now! I will give you his description:
Once there was a bird on a big rock. The bird saw all of the salmon in the ocean and decided two of them needed to be big. So the bird said Peeee Caw Pee Caw and the Salmon in the ocean got to be huge! They were sad that they couldn't go into the rivers because they were so big. So the big salmon told the other regular salmon to swim up the river. They became the spirit of the salmon that gave the direction for the salmon to go to help them reach the start of the river. On the way there were bears and many dangers, but the strongest and smartest salmon survived and make it to the top of the river.

Here is Frank holding Niki.

The kids after their first day of Art Camp. The camp is a mixture of kids from the community and kids who got to know CHAP through the hospital program. There are great kids from ages 5-10, in wheelchairs, without arms and all excited about art. All doing the same projects and working together to have fun and experiment with their creativity. I think that kids are just amazing.

They have been so great to us letting Alyosha and Luka and myself work on the garlands for their Christmas project in exchange for the kids painting and playing in the art factory. They are learning a great lesson--Alyosha says he is doing the work so Frank can go teach in the hospital. I am so thankful for the Art camp, it has been great. The kids are making spirit lamps and hula hoops. They are doing yoga and ti chi. Alyosha loves it.

CHAP

Alyosha and Luka got volunteer jobs at CHAP after a wonderful party we were invited to. An 'Angel' donated $400 for Isobel's Clubhouse to give the kids a party at the CHAP Art Factory. CHAP is an acronym for Children's Healing Art Project. CHAP brings the healing power of art to children in crisis and their families with a mobile team of teaching artists working in Portland's children's hospitals. In 2009, CHAP will work with over 10,000 children and their families. The Art Factory is one way for CHAP to raise money for the project. They usually charge $5 an hour per kid to allow them to do whatever they want with paint, collage and creativity.

We chatted and chatted with Frank, the head guy, and he was great. He said that if our kids come in and 'work' an hour they can then play an hour. We are making garlands that they will sell or give to donors at Christmas time. It has been fun so far...we will see how it goes.

The kids are painting the cardboard box castle from the inside. There are hidden buckets of paint everywhere--it is a kids world there.

Luka made a painting of a bear. He is into bears in all of his artwork right now. He made poke strokes on the cardboard castle.

Alyosha got a little too encouraged and started thinking that every stroke of his brush was creating a piece of gold. He turned into one of those cartoon scenes where the character takes a brush in each hand with the whimsical music going on in the background and with 3 strokes paints the Mona Lisa. He had a lot of fun though and now he really is creating a masterpiece : River with Salmon--it is a work in progress so more on that later.

Niki enjoyed his post as observer of all activities.