Grow the Heart - Sarasota Int’l Chalk Festival

Dear Friends and Art Enthusiasts,

Through the GROW THE HEART program, you can help us provide festival tickets to families and students in need.

The mission of the Sarasota Int'l Chalk Festival is to make world-class public art accessible and to foster community engagement. The Sarasota Int’l Chalk Festival is a spectacular three-day event where artists from around the world transform the streets into a "Museum in Motion" with their oversized masterpieces and interactive 3D illusions. This year, we are adding new cultural experiences, including flower carpets and a vibrant Sunday celebration featuring fantastical masks, human puppets, and stilt walkers. We are excited to return to our original location on S. Pineapple Avenue in Historic Burns Square November 8-10.

However, things have changed. Sarasota County is changing its support of the arts and we lost their funding ($38K, 26% of our Regional Grant budget). Hurricane Ian scrapped our 2022 Festival, losing $120K in flights, hotels and other revenue. This is a 30% budget impact. The City of Sarasota fees have also increased significantly, as well as lodging, rentals and flights. For these reasons a pre-purchased ticket is required to attend, to keep our nonprofit sustainable and control attendance.

Through the GROW THE HEART program, you can help us provide festival tickets to families and students in need. About 35,000 people in Sarasota live below the poverty line. With your support, we aim to distribute 8,000 tickets to local organizations such as:

- Child Protection Center

- Easterseals Southwest Florida

- Boys & Girls Clubs of Sarasota and DeSoto Counties

- Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Suncoast

- Safe Children’s Coalition

- All Star Children’s Foundation

- Children First

- The Twig Cares

- Girls Inc.

- Mothers Helping Mothers

Is there anything more memorable and heart warming than children, butterflies and flowers? We cooperated with the Child Protection Center (CPC) recently with our Avenue of Art exhibit, which is 300 paintings on the sidewalk around the Festival area in Burns Square Sarasota, with generous support from Sarasota Paint. It brought the neighborhood and city community together, as young and old, amateur and professional, local and international people contributed to telling stories of Sarasota County. Pictured is a small family who beautified the area in front of CPC. The Grow the Heart program will continue to inspire and foster children's interest in the creative processes.

Other ways we’ve done this recently include the Patterson Foundation helping us teach three free classes at our Studio: Large 3D Illusion Painting, Flower Carpets and Mask Making. Another neighborhood non-profit, The Exchange, supported our organization with a grant to teach Flower Carpet classes in Sarasota High School. The Exchange's Vision is to touch the heart and stimulate the creative mind of every adult and child in Sarasota and Manatee Counties, by financially supporting a vast and artistically diverse group of organizations, as well as students who aspire to be the world’s next generation of cultural influence. We appreciate their support, shared vision and impact on the community. Together, we can make a difference!

Please donate generously to the GROW THE HEART program to help us bring the joy of art to everyone in our community.

Thank you for your support.

Donate Now to Grow the Heart!