On Friday I got an email from St. Stephen's Church that puts on the St. Stephen's Art Show in Miami calling for help in boarding up the church to get ready for Hurricane Irma. For some reason this really hit me since I obviously couldn't do anything from Minnesota but I really wished I could help all the artists that are going to be or have already been effected by the terrible hurricanes this year. I had planned to donate to the artist relief funds but when I thought about how I was going to be having perfect weather for this weekend's art fair I thought I would do my best to share that positive weather karma.
I decided to donate 25% of my sales from my show in Northfield MN to artists hit by the hurricanes. I'm happy to say I had a record breaking show for this little show. I plan to donate half to the fund Connie mentioned last week: Jerry's Artarama's fund: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c054faaa629a3f49-jerrys
I would like to donate the other half to a fund in Florida. If anyone knows of any please let me know.
I hope that everyone is safe down there and that everyone gets the help they need to recover fully from these devastating storms. I've only been doing Florida shows the last few years but I feel like I already know and love the area. I also know that as an artist it is hard enough to do what we do and having this kind of destruction take over your life has got to be immensely challenging. I am glad there are good organizations out there helping our artists. Thank you so much to the people doing this amazing work!
And know we are all thinking of you all down there!
Comments
Good luck to you Mary!
It is so wonderful people reaching out to other artists. As a barely surviving Florida artist this storm has really hurt business and I now am looking to leave the state for drier climates like the desert. If anybody has any contacts in the Coachella Valley in California or where to start to market there I'd really appreciate any help or direction. Thank you and good luck to all of us
Layl, the Community Foundation of Sarasota has set up a relief fund. They are a wonderful organization that practices and encourages good stewardship of philanthropic funds. I'm not sure you can designate that your money go specifically to artists but you can check in with them about that. Here's the website, https://www.cfsarasota.org. Check in a few days as they are all trying to recover and begin to assess damage from Irma. Many places still have curfews in place and no power. My daughter-in-law works for CFS as Vice President of Finances. You can trust this fund. Next time I talk to her I'll see if funds can be directed to helping artists and how to make that happen. Right now she is without power and cell phone use is sporadic.
I found these other Arts Specific relief funds to donate to: (Let me know if there are other good ones anyone knows of)
Donate to artists and arts organizations impacted in Greater Houston @ Harvey Arts Recovery Fund
Donate to artists and arts organizations impacted in Texas @ Mid-America’s Texas Arts Fund
Donate to artists and arts organizations impacted in Louisiana @ Creative Relief Louisiana
This is so great, Layl, let's see if we can't get some other artists on board to help out...thanks.