Greetings Art Educators!

I wanted to inform you of a wonderful opportunity that Sargent Art is offering to students, parents and teachers throughout the nation.  In an effort to support Visual Art in our schools, Sargent Art has been sponsoring prizes for Youth Art Month related activities in a number of states over the last three years. It started with a handful of school districts and counties in California in 2007 and has since been steadily growing to include more and more states each year. 

Kansas is happy to announce that they will partner with Sargent Art as they celebrate Youth Art Month this year.  Kansas hosts an annual Youth Art Month Show at the State Capitol in Topeka.  The state prizes sponsored by Sargent Art will be as follows:

• One overall winner is selected by the Art Education Association of each participating state to win the Sargent Art sponsored grand prize - a trip to New York to visit Art Museums - along with one parent and the Art Teacher.

• One winner from each category, along with the Art Teacher, wins art supplies and a personalized certificate for the winner from Sargent Art.

Since most YAM related activities have a limit to the number of entries each teacher could submit, Sargent Art has created an Online Art Contest where teachers can send in as many entires as they like for free. Entries are invited from K-12 art teachers in the form of digital photographs of the artwork created in the classroom directly on the website - www.sargentart.com.

Here, too, the grand prize is a trip to New York to visit Art Museums for the winner along with one parent and the Art Teacher. Category prizes in the form of art supplies are also awarded to the winner and art teacher in each category.

The Online winner meets winners from all the participating states on a weekend in the summer in New York. The group will visit Art Museums as well as take in some famous New York landmarks - some of who are stepping into New York for the very first time.

Having seen the success of this sponsorship, Sargent Art is currently looking to create similar collaborations with more Art Education Associations of other states in an attempt to advance Visual Art activities in the various states. Presidents and/or YAM Chairs interested in adding a sponsor of prizes to her/his current state wide K-12 multi-category YAM related activity can contact Bhakti Oza - bhakti.oza@sargentart.com - and make it possible for a student of your state to win a trip to New York & visit Art Museums along with one parent and the Art Teacher! 

I hope you are all able to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity that Sargent Art has provided in support of the arts through out our nation!

-Linda Morgan