GRACE LINMy good friend Grace Lin has come up with a wonderful idea for raising money to help fund the visits of children’s authors and illustrators in under-served schools in the Boston area. She calls this initiative Small Graces.
What is Grace going to do to raise money? She’s going to auction off an unpublished, original painting each month on eBay! All proceeds of each auction will go to The Foundation for Children’s Books to help pay the fees of visiting authors and illustrators.
January's painting will be auctioned from Monday, January 12 through Friday, January 16. Here’s the painting:
I’m excerpting from a post Grace wrote about this project for Blue Rose Girls:
It isn't fair that the only schools that get authors to visit are the ones that can afford to. Every visit I do, I can see the excitement in the students. But it also isn't fair to ask the author (the usually financially-strapped author) to do it for free either.
That is where organizations like the Foundation of Children's Books, the beneficiary of my new little project, comes in.
The Foundation funds school visit programs for low-income schools. So, schools that usually can't afford an author to visit, get one and the author doesn't have to suffer financially either.
Supporting the Foundation is win-win for everyone. Students of all incomes get wonderful programs and fellow authors are able to make a living to keep creating books! Isn't that great?
Check out the details of the Small Graces project at Small Graces: A Painting a Month for The FCB.
Read about The Foundation for Children’s Books and its programs.
Here are links to two posts about Small Graces that Grace Lin wrote Blue Rose Girls:
Please help us to spread the word about Small Graces!
Elaine, what a lovely photograph of Grace Lin. Her inner beauty certainly shines through. I've taught at "have-not" schools, and those kids really do appreciate special events such as meeting a favorite author. Grace's project will bring to joy to many children who migh never have had the opportunity to meet a favorite author.
ReplyDeleteLinda,
ReplyDeleteThe Foundation for Children's Books is a wonderful organization that helps to bring some of the best children's authors and illustrators into schools in low income urban districts throughout Greater Boston. I hope Small Graces will raise lots of money for The FCB.