Tis the season for giving so why not give a gift that gives back? Today I will feature a few charitable groups or individuals who have found a way to promote great art and a great cause: hunger.

Will Paint for Food is an RI based organization created by local artist Shawn Kenney and Ninecooks. He sells his food inspired paintings and donates a portion of the proceeds to local food banks. Fairly simple concept…but brilliantly good.

























































The NYC Foodbank has partnered up with The Lunchbox Fund, an organization trying to feed the impoverished people of Soweto, for a really cool twist on a traditional art auction: celebrity designed lunch boxes. From Dec.11th through the 18th you can bid on line for your favorite lunchbox and support two amazing causes.If you live in the NYC area you can even buy a ticket for the kickoff party on the 11th and hobnob with Michael Stipe and Mario Batali among others.

Doodle for Hunger is another great charity art event that keeps NYC hungry fed. Again…so simple in it’s concept…yet so magnificent in its result. Celebrities are asked to doodle…just doodle. The doodles are auctioned off and the money buys food. It is too late to bid on this year’s contributions, the auction is held in late Oct/early Nov., but it is such a brilliant idea…I had to include it. Do you have any local celebrities who own crayons? I bet you do.

What I love about these organizations is that not only do they do good work, & offer us a chance to be involved, but they also, hopefully, inspire us to see how we can use our own creativity and effort to solve problems that often seem unsolvable. What artistic resources could you use to solve your town’s food bank shortage? How about a kid’s art auction? A charitable concert or dance performance? If you put the word out, I bet you would be surprised to see what talents have been tucked away in the corners of people’s lives just waiting for the right cause to show them off.

If you know of other great art-charity partnerships please be sure to leave a link in the comments to help them out. Charities and artists share one unhappy trait; they are some of the first to suffer the consequences of a tanked economy. If you can, why not give some kick-ass gifts that support real people on so many levels? Or even better yet…make your own art-charity connection and help stock your local pantries shelves for the long lean months sure to come.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 7:08 pm and is filed under handmade holidays, projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.