If you don’t have a dream, you can’t make a dream come true. These fully developed programs are waiting for funding opportunities.

Lex’s Art Adventures

A six-episode Kentucky children’s video series. A young host, together with a friend and his art teacher visits Kentucky landmarks and creates found-object art with no purchased supplies—designed for Youtube, schools and Kentucky Education Television. Every episode reaches children who have no art supplies and shows them what they can make from what’s around them.

Girls Who Glitter

A twelve-week fashion design and construction program culminating in a runway show. Girls design their own garments, choose their own fabrics and walk a ruway in something they made themselves. For at-risk girls, this is an act of self-determination.

Boots & Brushes

American folk dance and heritage art— born from the line dancing session of Red White & You that was so popular it demanded its own program. These dancing kids will not only master their line dance moves but will have time each of the six weeks to do a dance related or Appalachian heritage related art project.

Pitch Perfect Place

A choral program for children—building voice, confidence, harmony and the experience of making music together.

The Sound Crew

An instrumental music program giving children access to instruments, instruction and the joy of playing together—alongside the choir, completing Kids Place Lex as a place where children can find their musical voice as well as their visual one. Also offered will be individual piano and voice lessons for children who show interest and aptitude.

Chess Mates

Chess Mates—where strategic thinking, patience and problem-solving meet in the most satisfying way possible. Players learn the game, develop their skills and discover that the same focus and discipline that wins a chess match builds confidence in everything else.

Time Travelers Art Club

Strap in. The Tie Travelers Art Club takes children on a six-week journey through the entire history of human art-making—from the very first marks made on cave walls to imagined visions of what art might look like in a future not yet invented.

Each week lands in a different era. Children don’t just study what they find there—they make it. From prehistoric handprints to futuristic abstractions, every stop on the timeline becomes a studio project that is entirely their own.

You’re A Work of Art

A program where every Kids Place kid gets a birthday card mailed to them at their home address. The inside sentiment reads “You’re a Work of Art” and the card is signed by all Kids Place art instructors.

Merry & Bright Studio

An open program on two Saturday mornings in early December where kids can come, select one or more make and take projects and have their creations wrapped at the gift wrapping table. They come for the fun and leave with a handmade gift.

The Story Squad

Every child has a story worth telling. The Story Squad is Kids Place Lex’s book club—a six-week program where children read, discuss and discover themselves in the pages of a book.

Children are grouped by age—8 -10 and 11-13—so every conversation happens at the right level. Each week brings a guided discussion led by an experienced literary educator or author, helping children find their own voice and connect their own experiences to the story they are reading.

The Snap Squad

Every child sees the world differently. Snap Squad gives them a camera and six weeks to prove it.

In this photography program for kids ages 8-14, participants learn the fundamentals of the camera and the art of visual storytelling—how to find a subject, frame a shot and capture a moment that means something. The program closes with a public exhibition of their work because photographs made by children deserve to be seen.

THE FIRST STEP—PAID STAFF

Presently, all the administrative work of Kids Place Lex is done almost entirely by its founder—who serves simultaneously as Executive Director, grant writer, program coordinator, supply buyer and co-teacher. She does it gladly. But to grow, to reach every child who needs us, we need to build a team.

The most important investment any funder can make in Kinds Place Lex right now is not a program. It is a person—at least one part-time staff member who can carry the administrative weight and free our founder to do what she does best: build programs that change children’s lives.

A $30,000 annual gift funds a part-time program coordinator. That single investment multiplies everything else we do.

Sketch & Sculpt

Some artists draek program introduces children to the connected disciplines of design and sculpture—learning to see aw their world. Some build it. In Sketch & Sculpt, children ages 6-12 do both.

This six-wen idea on paper and then bring it to life in three dimensions. Working with wire, cardboard, clay and found objects, children discover that the materials for making something extraordinary are closer than they think.

This program closes with a public exhibition of the finished sculptures.

THE TEN YEAR VISION

In ten years, Kids Place Lex is a full-service creative learning center—a permanent location serving foster children, low-income children and children facing challenges including ADHD, learning differences and anxiety. It offers visual arts, fashion design, film, music, tutoring and storytelling under one roof. It has never charged a child a single dollar.

It has a staff of five to ten. A volunteer crew of thirty to fifty. a choral program and a band that perform publicly. A video series in distribution on Youtube and KET. A runway show and an exhibit every spring and fall.

And every child who has ever walked through its doors has a received a birthday card in the mail that says you are a work of art.