GRANTS, N.M. – Christmas has arrived in brushstrokes again along Santa Fe Avenue, now officially designated Route 66, as local fourth-graders filled storefront windows with snowmen, stockings and Christmas scenes for the eighth annual community window-painting project led by Roger and Evelyn Siegmann.
For nearly a decade, the Grants couple has spent the week before Christmas organizing students, lining up downtown businesses and making sure every young artist has a pane of glass to brighten.
The idea started in 2017, when Roger watched a visiting artist paint a single holiday window on a local business and wondered why Grants’ own children couldn’t do the same.
“I have an idea,” he recalled telling Evelyn at the time, before reaching out to family and local educators to see whether the schools would be interested. Fourth-grade classes signed on, and that first year 20 Milan Elementary students fanned out to paint elves, Santa hats, candy canes and Christmas trees on 20 businesses, raising donations that were shared between Grants MainStreet and the Grants–Milan Rotary Club’s backpack program.
Since then, the project has steadily grown.
Over the years, students from Milan Elementary and other area schools, including Mesa View, Mt. Taylor, San Rafael and Bluewater, have joined in. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and children could not go into business, the Siegmanns shifted to hand-drawn paper art, making sure windows and rooms at Good Samaritan and Grants Cibola General Hospital were still decorated for the holidays.
By the end of the 2024 season, the effort had involved more than 700 children and raised nearly $15,000 in donations, with proceeds supporting the Grants–Milan Rotary Foundation Backpack Program that provides food for local children who have food insecure families with a backpack full of non-perishable food on weekends.
This year’s painting continued that tradition, with students once again covering windows across Grants and Milan.
This issue recognizes the many local backers, including restaurants, repair shops, public agencies and small businesses such as El Cafecito, Double Six Gallery, Diamond G Home Center, Cibola General Hospital, the Cibola Historical Museum, the New Mexico Mining Museum, Grants Fire Department, the New Mexico State Police, the Village of Milan and the Cibola Citizen, among many others.
Roger and Evelyn’s holiday project is just one of the ways they have poured time and energy into Cibola County. Over the years, Roger has helped organize community efforts ranging from breast cancer mammogram screening fundraisers to Bronco rallies in support of local businesses, museums and nonprofits, including this continuing partnership with the Grants–Milan Rotary Club.
Residents who want to see the results of this year’s work can simply take a drive along Route 66 and through Milan to enjoy the hand-painted scenes in shop windows.
Through care for children and community, the Siegmann’ss have been spreading holiday cheer through Cibola.