Thea Foundation will launch its $50,000 Challenge Match with support from the Windgate Foundation on Tuesday, May 5. For several weeks, Thea Foundation has closed its physical doors temporarily and cancelled all public events, including important fundraisers. The organization asks for donations to continue to be a resource for the 33,000 public school teachers in Arkansas as Thea’s Art Closet program aims to still provide $100,000 in art supplies and creative materials for th

Thea Foundation announced today that it has received a $10,000 gift from First Orion, an industry-leading telecommunications company soon to be headquartered just two blocks away from the nonprofit’s Argenta office and gallery in downtown North Little Rock. This extraordinary gift will support Thea Foundation’s statewide programs in advance of its summer initiative to raise funds to help stock Thea’s Art Closet budget prior to the 2020-21 academic year First Orion’s contribut

Supporting Arkansas teachers at the elementary school level is an important element of Thea’s Art Closet program. Last month, we drove a little over an hour outside of Little Rock to Clarendon, where a rural farming community continues to navigate major issues, including poverty. For this particular trip, we sought to visit with Katelyn Dancer, a remarkable teacher at Clarendon Elementary School who has received Art Closet project funding from Thea Foundation since 2016. A re

Last month, we stopped by Christopher Swaty’s art classroom at Robinson High School in Little Rock. Christopher received his second fully-funded Art Closet project at the very start of the school year—he requested supplies to facilitate teaching different forms of printmaking. Through Thea’s Art Closet, public high school art teachers are able to submit a project request valued at $2,500 or less, and Thea Foundation immediately funds half of the project (up to $1,250) while o

Thea’s Art Closet, a Thea Foundation program which awards funding for art supplies and other creative materials to Arkansas classrooms, kicked off the first week of the 2019-20 school year with disbursing over $10,000 for 14 projects across the state that were matched with other donors, including The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This school year, Thea Foundation has $100,000 in available funding for Art Closet projects, which is double the grant money that was offered las

It’s game night, and inside the band room at Hall High School in Little Rock, student are buzzing with excitement. Basketball season is starting, and Hall’s brass band is fine-tuning the music they’ll perform to pep up the audience and the players tonight. Band instructor Rojay Moore leads the musicians, stopping them every now and then to pinpoint where they could make changes. “Being in the band helps students develop the discipline needed for success in and out of other cl

“Students who dance have a reason to come to school,” North Little Rock dance instructor Christen Pitts says. “They can express themselves, get out emotions through movement, their grades are better, and they learn time management skills.” When the morning bell rings, Mrs. Pitts’s students are dressed and ready to warm up. They listen attentively and answer as roll is called, then they get in formation in front of the mirrors that fully surround them, eager for their instruct

This #GivingTuesday, Thea Foundation and Arkansas teachers have a great need. Just two months ago, we made the big announcement that we were DOUBLING our budget for Arkansas teachers in need of supplies this school year, giving $50,000 in art supplies and creative materials to underfunded classrooms across the state. Well, it’s just November and we’re down to $7,000 left in our Art Closet funds. By mid-November, we’re expecting to be completely out of funds, with six more mon

Thea’s Art Closet, a program of Thea Foundation which awards funding for art supplies and other creative materials to Arkansas classrooms, is now open and accepting submissions for the 2018-19 school year, and with $50,000 to award — that’s double the grant money that was offered last school year. Thea Foundation is inviting public school teachers of grades K-12 across the state of Arkansas to submit requests for art supplies and other creative materials to DonorsChoose.org,

“Awesome feet!” Middle school art educator Jordan Wolf compliments a students on the little clay “feet” she’s added to the bottom of her pinch pot, a type of accessible hand-built pottery that’s a perfect jumping-off point for working with clay. “This is the first time most of these students have worked with clay, so we’re spending a lot of time learning how to use our hands. Students have spent several classes just practicing pinch pots and rolling coils,” Wolf says. “I try

A group of third graders huddles around a table at Seventh Street Elementary School, their arms weaving over each other and brows furrowed as they thoughtfully stack Legos. “Who knows how to build a house?” one asks. “I do!” another shouts. They’re collaborating to build a set with the plastic bricks, which they’ll use to film a stop motion animation starring Lego characters in a story the students wrote. Each student wrote his own film, their teacher, Melinda Bissett, says,

Elena Petroukhina, an art teacher at Mann Arts Magnet Middle School in Little Rock, is a Thea’s Art Closet veteran. Over the years, she’s been able to supply her classroom with creative materials that typically fall outside of her annual budget. “We get a budget for each school year. Usually that covers the basics like pencils, markers, paper, some paint. To give students a variety of experiences with art media, I have to raise extra funds,” Petroukhina said. “Because Mann is

In the fall of 2016, Brad Wreyford, a teacher at Arkansas School for Math, Sciences and the Arts (ASMSA) in Hot Springs, took his students to visit Thea Foundation, where he learned about Thea’s Art Closet. Always looking to expand his lesson plans, Wreyford quickly got to work on his first Thea’s Art Closet project. “Our art budget is adequate for what we do now, but it is spread thin when we attempt to grow,” Wreyford said. “Having funds to expand what we offer usually come

Together, Nakia Brener and Allen Sullivan, both teachers at Rogers Heritage High School in Rogers, Ark., have posted six projects to DonorsChoose.org appealing for supplies to teach arts-related material to their students. Five of those projects received half of their funding from Thea Foundation through Thea’s Art Closet, whose mission is to fill in the gaps where schools lack or don’t prioritize funding for arts materials. “I am very fortunate to have a school district and

When Stephanie Darnell, an art teacher at Maumelle Middle School, comes up with a new project she knows will really excite and engage her students but that her budget won’t cover, she doesn’t quit the project. Stephanie submits her project proposal on DonorsChoose.org, knowing that a project that totals $600 or less and incorporates the arts will automatically qualify for half-funding through Thea’s Art Closet, a program of Thea Foundation. Through social media, she can share

Patty Oeste, a seventh grade teacher at Ruth Doyle Middle School, located in Conway, Ark., didn’t know what to expect when she launched her first project on DonorsChoose.org, but she knew that her students needed supplies and she had to try something new to make up for what her school’s budget severely lacked. “Over the years I have raised funds by selling candy, pencils and waiting tables with student helpers,” she explained. “The money comes together very slowly that way.”