Another beautiful Christmas coming up soon… it’s been 7 years now since we started painting Christmas scenes and figures on business windows here in Grants NM, and our neighboring Village of Milan, using our local elementary schools’ 4th grade students.
“I have an idea“, I mentioned to my wife Evelyn at a time near Christmas in 2017 after I had watched an enterprising artist from a town a hundred miles away paint a Christmas tree on a local business window. He finished and collected his fee and left. I thought to myself “why don’t use our local elementary students to paint windows for the Christmas holidays”? I mentioned that idea to Evelyn and her response was “great, let’s see what we can do!” We called our niece Joanna Fitch, a fourth grade teacher in Milan at the time, to see how she could help. She talked to her school’s principal Clara DeArmond, and fellow teachers Amanda Valdez and Angela Barela, and they got permission to do so. Twenty 4th graders from Milan Elementary school painted elves, Santa’s, candy canes and Christmas trees on 20 businesses and at a $20 dollar donation for each we achieved $400.00 which would go to Grants Mainstreet project (which I had joined) and split with the Grants/ Milan Rotary Club to support their backpack program feeding needy children food on weekends. Awesome!
The following years we included children from Mesa View, Mt. Taylor, San Rafael and Bluewater elementary schools and raised $800.00. The following year $1600. In 2020 Covid hit, and all businesses were receptive to hand drawn paper art as we could not get children out. These towns believe in children; we raised $2000.
We got children back in 2021 and it was great; over 40 businesses and 80 some windows decorated and $2000.00 raised. Kids ate donated Domino’s pizza, Subway and Sonic meals. Happy children and more beautiful windows. Math quizzes topping each day to keep in line with school requirements were achieved with donated and sharpened pencils from NMSU Grants Branch.
2022 window decorating netted $2400.00 with 51 businesses bringing the total over the years to $9K plus and over 500 total young artist’s effort since inception while learning team work and community participation, and we did children’s hand drawn Christmas paper art in 40 rooms at Good Samaritan and 20 patient rooms at Grants Cibola General Hospital, sharing the Christmas spirit with those patients. 2023 was another great year; 53 businesses participated with 94 windows painted and 23 hand drawn art to brighten out towns windows. We raised $2770.00 and again going to the Grants - Milan Rotary Foundation Backpack program.
This year we celebrate our 7th year of this wonderful Christmas event: We had 54 businesses participating that totaled 100 hand painted and decorated windows, and 17 windows that were decorated with hand drawn paper Christmas art that totaled 115 pages altogether. This year children enjoyed Sonic meals as well as Domino’s Pizza, and one group was fed by Grants Good Samaritan Society. This year’s fund raising is going entirely to the Milan-Grants Rotary Foundation backpack program to feed needy children on weekends. Generous citizens also donated to the cause. This year’s total is $3103.00 bringing the event proceeds total for over the years to almost $15K; and over 700 children have participated, learning teamwork and community involvement. Again, math quizzes after lunch using pencils donated by NMSU Grants Branch.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas: Brushstrokes of Christmas Magic Act Vll!
Merry Christmas!