Our goal with every Glowtown workshop is to bring people together to experience the wonders of making something from nothing, creating not only pieces of art but helping to build communities. To that end, we first work with leaders in the community who help in the planning stages to:

• Identify space for the workshop.

• Recruit parents and volunteers to help during the day.

• Collect cast-off, "trash" material, such as cardboard, popsicle sticks, pine cones, paper plates, toilet paper rolls, sticks & twigs, cotton balls & swabs, coffee filters, wine corks, tin cans, to name only a few.

• Organize kids to participate.

After careful planning, the day of fun finally arrives with Sharon directing the moving parts:

Teams of six to eight kids are organized and each group elects a team-leader. Everyone in the group then works together to come up with a theme and a name for their unique, make-believe "town," focusing on what happens in this town both during the day and night. Using the collected "trash" materials, each member contributes to the town by creating his or her own 12" x 12" section.

As Sharon yells out deadlines and assists with helpful techniques, the volunteers sit with the kids and help direct them in their efforts. When the time is right, Sharon instructs the teams that they should start painting with the glow-in-the-dark paint. This is when the magic really begins: the lights are turned off, the towns suddenly light up and glow, and squeals of delight can be heard throughout the room by children and adults!

At the end of the workshop, team members take home their puzzle pieces to work on further or just to cherish forever as an art piece. And finally, we post on our website all the fun photos and video taken during the day so that participants can download images of each other, allowing the day to live on.

Passing it on

Because the power of creativity can transform lives and effect positive change in communities, we strive to include as many people as possible in every Glowtown. Therefore, a final goal of ours is to have Glowtown continue on after we've directed a workshop.

We enthusiastically encourage teachers and community leaders to take what Sharon has created and repeat it again for future participants. Our hope is that Glowtown helps fill the many gaps in arts education that exist throughout the country.