Children’s Creative Project: Student Support Through Chalk & Art

The I Madonnari Street Painting Festival, much-beloved mainstay of Memorial Day weekend for many decades, is more than two months away. But for Children’s Creative Project – the longstanding local nonprofit that has produced the festival since its founding – it’s already time to gear up and get ready. I Madonnari, inspired by the romantic Italian festival in Grazie di Curtatone, Italy, came to Santa Barbara in 1987 at the urging of Children’s Creative Project founder Kathy Koury, and was the first of its kind in the western hemisphere. Now, some 40,000 people turn up to drop by the festival that turns the blacktop in front of the historic Santa Barbara Mission into a canvas for dozens of spectacular if ephemeral works of art using nothing but colored sticks of chalk. 

I Madonnari is plenty popular, but it’s a good bet that a decidedly small percentage of the folks that frequent the festival have any idea that it’s the Children’s Creative Project’s primary fundraiser of the year, much less exactly what it is that CCP does. 

Changing that dynamic has been among several public awareness goals of Kai Tepper-Jahnke, who succeeded local legend Kathy Koury a few years ago as executive director of the Santa Barbara County Office of Education’s nonprofit program. Tepper-Jahnke, who previously served as Outreach Program manager for the Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation and executive director for The Arts Fund prior to that, is now shepherding CCP as it continues its work to support individual schools and school districts throughout the county in arts education programming. 

CCP strives to create programs that meet each school or district’s specific needs and budgets with visual and performing arts workshops conducted by resident artists, and multicultural performances presented by professional touring artists. Through innovative programs and immersive experiences, the organization works to empower children to discover the boundless possibilities of their imagination, fostering the growth and development of young minds through the truly transformative power of the arts. And it’s all done in close collaboration with the individual school or district to ensure that the programs have maximum benefit, far from a one-size-fits-all approach. 

If that’s new to you, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

“I was born and raised here,” said Tepper-Jahnke. “I grew up going to the festival. I grew up benefiting from Children’s Creative Project programs as a kid because I went to public schools. And it wasn’t until I collaborated with Kathy in my capacity at the Bowl that I started to understand the breadth of what Children’s Creative Project does, which is truly incredible.”

Some of the relevant numbers include reaching 70,000-80,000 children annually during school hours and after school in more than 80 schools in Santa Barbara County; since their inception, providing nearly 97,570 hours of art instruction to students, and staging more than 63,525 unique school assembly experiences. That sort of reach and approach is why back in 1999, Children’s Creative Project was among fewer than a 100 nationwide model arts education programs recognized by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in a report called “Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons from School Districts that Value Arts Education.”

But CCP’s obstacles include some sobering statistics that show that arts funding is lower today than it was 25 years ago, that California ranks 35th in per-capita arts funding, and that demand far exceeds the available resources, even though research shows that students who receive robust education in the arts are far more likely to stay in school and to graduate from college.

Which is why Tepper-Jahnke and the board have come up with a new campaign called 40/50/60 to sustain and expand arts education across Santa Barbara County. The figures are not just a decorative sequence, but speak to a meaningful triptych. This year marks both I Madonnari’s 40th festival, and the 50th anniversary of CCP achieving nonprofit status and becoming a Santa Barbara County Education Office program. The goal this year is to raise $60,000. 40/50/60 – handily memorable.

“We decided to launch this campaign to elevate opportunities for more philanthropic giving and to boost fundraising throughout the year, not alone for businesses and major sponsors’ support of the festival,” she said. “This year school funding is in a very vulnerable state, and arts and culture funding has historically also been challenging.” 

So CCP is looking to raise an additional $60,000 to meet that demand for arts education, Tepper-Jahnke said. 

“It’s crazy, but statewide something like 89% of public schools are not meeting the requirements as stated by the California Department of Education for arts education. The mandate is that every student in every grade is supposed to get visual arts, dance, theater, music and new media arts. We are so far behind on that across California.” 

CCP is also working to strengthen the connection between I Madonnari and those art programs. These include strong partnerships that encourage school organizations to get involved in the festival, banding together to buy a square on the pavement, and  creation of 16-20 student leadership teams. These student teams learn important skills in the period before the festival, effectively becoming trained community art emissaries through instruction in event production, general arts advocacy, and civic engagement – skills the students then implement over the course of the three-day event.  

“We’re really trying to integrate some of our programming with the schools into I Madonnari in new and interesting ways,” Tepper-Jahnke said. 

The fundraising focus at the moment, of course, is tied directly to the street painting festival. Children’s Creative Project is in the process of securing overall sponsors, as well as groups and individuals who sponsor dedicated “squares” that an artist then uses to create a marvelous piece of chalk art over the Memorial Day weekend event. 

Tepper-Jahnke gave shout-outs to returning “Maestro” hero sponsors Nora McNeely Hurley and Michael Hurley, as well as to the ongoing investment and significant support from The Berry Man, Inc. She also highlighted the Looker Foundation, Hutton Parker Foundation, Schiele Foundation, and Williams Corbett Foundation. 

“Each of these organizations has made a huge difference this year in allowing the team and I to keep growing and deepening our support for students through arts education,” she said. “But we’re still seeking major festival sponsors and business support to purchase squares.”

Prices range from $300 for a 4’ x 6’ square, up to $1,200 for a massive 12’ x 12’ space boasting 144 square feet. Sponsors’ names are always stenciled in white chalk at the top of the squares, providing the sponsors name-exposure to the 40,000 annual visitors, as well as tons of goodwill. Sponsors can arrange their own street painter, or confer with CCP to be matched with a volunteer artist. 

I Madonnari has such a strong and compelling history as the first of its kind in the U.S., that some 30 “legacy” artists return to the festival every year to volunteer their time in acknowledgement that, as professional artists who travel internationally to street painting festivals around the world, they began their careers in front of the Mission. 

So perhaps visitors to this year’s I Madonnari over May 23-25 might not only marvel at the magnificent works of art on the ground, but also get in on the ground floor of supporting CCP. 

“All the proceeds from the festival goes back into arts programs for schools,” Tepper-Jahnke said. “It has a terrific full circle aspect.”  

Visit https://ccp.sbceo.org