Lynches River art day draws a crowd

Lynches River art day draws a crowd (Added: June 12, 2010)

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Neriah Faile, left, and Sheldon Davis, right play in the birdseed "Sandbox" set up by the Children's Museum of the Pee Dee, once children were done playing they were given a bag of seed to take home and feed to the birds in their yard.

By: Elizabeth Lamb | SCNow
Published: June 12, 2010

FLORENCE -- Children of all ages put their inner-artist to work Saturday at the Second Annual Art in the Park at Lynches River County Park in Coward. The Florence Optimist Club sponsored the event.

Displays and hands-on activities varied from modeling clay to tie-dyed T-shirts that drew in more than 100 children and their families.

Missy Davis Jones, Optimist Club publicity manager, said encouraging the arts remains important, despite cuts in public funding.

“We want to expose them to as many aspects of the arts as we can, whether that’s singing or dance or building something,” Jones said.

Eleven-year-old William Willis, of Jacksonville, N.C., said the different types of art intrigued him. He even built his very first birdhouse.

“It was simple, really, just get the nails into the hole then tap them gently. I had my thumb on it,” Willis said.

He said he plans to paint it and add butterfly food before he hangs it in his backyard.

“It’s my first time doing it and I did real good on it, so, it was great,” Willis said.

Jones said having a can-do attitude and creative mind is what the event is all about.

“Bringing out the best in kids in arts is really just encouraging them to be creative and to do things that they haven’t done before,” Jones said.

Jones said the Optimist Club, a non-profit organization, teamed up with Pee Dee artists and art programs to create an event to showcase art programs in Florence.

“You hear people say all the time there’s nothing to do in Florence, nothing ever happens here. Well, I think that if sometimes you want something to happen, you need to get involved and you need to make things happen,” Jones said.

Jones said decreased funding for the arts doesn’t lower the priority of having such programs in the community.

“For our part, we thought we could contribute more to the arts. The fact is there is less money for the arts in the community these days.”

But that didn’t stop Willis.

“This is just fun, I get to put stuff together, I really like doing that,” he said.