Marya Mann : Blog : Carrying Light Into The New Year — ArtWavEs Invites YOU

Carrying Light Into the New Year - ArtWavEs Invites YOU

Aloha Kakou! Love to us All!

As the year turns and new beginnings quietly arrive, we find ourselves standing at an important threshold for ArtWavEs.

In the coming weeks, our small but devoted team is preparing to travel to Nanawale, planning work and resource kits for WHEA, and remaining present for teachers and classrooms in Illinois and Utah who are carrying this work forward with such love and dedication. These circles of creativity, peace, and belonging are growing—because they are needed.

What we’re building now is very much about rites of passage—something our culture has largely lost. Across cultures, rites of passage are how children learn to cross thresholds into belonging, responsibility, creativity, and care for life itself. Without them, we see what many elders have named as an erosion of adulthood—a culture that stays stuck in adolescence.

ArtWavEs trainings are designed as lived rites of passage for both teachers and children—embodied experiences of peace, beauty, and awe that mark real developmental thresholds. This is why we believe so strongly that working early, through art, movement, and shared meaning, is one of the most effective ways to prevent violence later in life.

As we prepare for upcoming programming and continue strengthening the teacher training, we’re at a point where additional support would really help us stabilize and deepen the work.

To support children and families during this New Year transition, we are also planning to offer take-home “Blessing Bags” (sometimes lovingly called “Sparkle Bags”)—simple, joy-filled bundles for families to carry home. Each bag will nourishing food items, basic art supplies, and a few small surprises meant to remind children and caregivers alike that they are seen, valued, and supported.

This is gentle work—but it requires real resources. We invite you to give in either dollars or resources for the take-home bags filled with nutritional and magical gifts to sustain the creative spirits of children who, like so many of us, feel the stresses of this extraordinary time, but unlike the more seasoned elders among us, have not developed inner resources to cope and stay in balance. With your support, ArtWavEs offers them inner resources for inspiration and outer resources for nourishment.

At this moment, ArtWavEs needs donor support to continue:
• Transportation and materials for our Nanawale visits
• Teacher support and supplies for partner communities in Illinois, Missouri, and Utah
• Blessing/Sparkle Bags for families welcoming the New Year
• 2026 programming at WHEA

Your generosity makes it possible for creativity to remain a lived experience—not a luxury—and for peace to be practiced in tangible, everyday ways. Even modest contributions ripple outward, becoming paint in a child’s hands, nourishment on a family’s table, and a moment of wonder that says: you matter.

If you feel called to help sustain this work, we are deeply grateful. Please donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bn2wcd-children-for-peace

If this is not the moment to make a financial donation, know that your care, encouragement, and presence in this community already mean so much.

IN WEST HAWAII — IF YOU HAVE FRESH (not pre-opened) goodies — healthy food, paints, brushes, surfaces, gifts — we are grateful to receive items at the Kona Green Market at Amy Greenwell Garden on Sunday, December 21. Please text or call 808-345-0050 for details.

IN EAST HAWAII — IF YOU HAVE children and family members who want to reserve space to attend, or you have goodies, donations, or food to share, please call or text Sherri at 907-617-0760. Your valued gifts will be kindly accepted at 5:00 pm or later on December 26th at 14-664 Seaview Rd.

Thank you for walking alongside us as we continue to plant seeds of beauty, resilience, and hope—one child, one family, one blessing at a time.

With love and appreciation,

Marya Mann, Susan Minor, Lara Printz
ArtWavEs Creative Council