At the age of 12, Lucas Kreider can look back at the success of a charitable organization he created half his life ago. As the young Lancaster artist approaches his sixth annual Peace Kids to the Rescue Art Show and Silent Auction, which he co-founded with his mother, Sophia Ellis Kreider, he says it’s “overwhelming and exciting” that the show has raised $22,000 for local nonprofits in the past five years.
Lucas was 6 when he suggested to his mother that he wanted to start an event through which he and other children could sell their art to benefit those in need.
Now a seventh-grader at the Susquehanna Waldorf School in Marietta, Lucas is hoping the 52 pieces of children’s artwork in this year’s show will raise $7,000 — $1,000 more than was raised last year — for this year’s beneficiary nonprofits.
Here is some of the young artists’ work up for bid with Peace Kids to the Rescue
Peace Kids to the Rescue will hold its sixth Art Show and Auction at Millersville University’s Ware Center, on North Prince Street in Lancaster, on Friday, Sept. 6. These are some of the works by artists 4-19 that will be available for bid. Some works will also be available on notecards.
The event will be from 6-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6, in the lobby of the Ware Center in Lancaster, as part of Lancaster’s First Friday.
Money raised from the sale of the artwork, created by children ages 4-19, will go to Church World Service, which supports refugees and immigrants who are settling in the Lancaster area, and the Arch Street Center, a day program for adults living with mental illness.
Minimum bids for each piece of art, which includes paintings, jewelry and sculpture, is $35. All bids for the silent auction will be collected at the Ware Center during the event.
Every piece of art submitted is exhibited in the show for sale, Lucas says.
“We want it to feel like an empowering event for kids — not something where they have to meet a certain bar,” Kreider says.
Sophia Ellis Kreider kisses her son, Lucas, at the 2023 Peace Kids to the Rescue Show and Auction at Lancaster’s Ware Center. The 2024 show and auction are at the Ware Center Sept. 6. The two co-founded the nonprofit six years ago, when Lucas suggested starting a project in which children could sell their artwork to raise money for charity.
“Every single piece that’s submitted goes to somebody,” Lucas says. “No matter what. Any kid that submits a piece of art, it’s going to get bought during the show.”
This year’s artwork includes jewelry, sculpture and colorful paintings of trees, flowers, animals and birds, and even of a pizza box with a bright yellow pizza cut up inside.
Lucas’ abstract artwork appears on one of the notecards. He prefers to work in watercolor and colored pencil.
“Visca Pisces,” by Lucas Kreider, 12, is one of the works up for bid at the Peace Kids to the Rescue Art Show and Auction at the Ware Center Sept. 6.
“Our school is very art-driven,” Lucas says of Susquehanna Waldorf. “We do a lot of art at this school.”
Each year, Lucas and his mother have a goal of expanding the show in some way.
“The word is spreading. People are more familiar with the name. I think the circle has grown in a very organic way,” Kreider says.
“The Ruined Project,” by Dante Atencio, 11, is one of the works up for bid at the Peace Kids to the Rescue Art Show and Auction at the Ware Center Sept. 6.
Since last year, a brand logo has been developed for Peace Kids to the Rescue; mugs by a pottery artist, featuring the blue-and-white logo, will be sold for $40 each. Notecard sets, featuring images of work submitted by past and current Peace Kids artists, will be sold for $25. Waterproof stickers are $3 each.
Another new facet of this year’s show is the art exhibit that will be in the upstairs Regitz Gallery at the Ware on First Friday through Sept. 27.
“Elephant Family,” by Claire Fritz, 11, is one of the works up for bid at the Peace Kids to the Rescue Art Show and Auction at the Ware Center Sept. 6.
The paintings are by artist Roohafza Emami, who fled Afghanistan with her four children and resettled in Lancaster with the help of Church World Service.
Emami’s children submitted art to the Peace Kids show last year, Kreider says.
At that time, “I got to talking with her and was really inspired by her and then saw her artwork,” Kreider says. “This is her dream. Her first-ever exhibit will be there.”
“Rooted in Living Water,” by Lily Muenstermann, 15, is one of the works up for bid at the Peace Kids to the Rescue Art Show and Auction at the Ware Center Sept. 6.
Lucas says he loves meeting all the other young artists in the show each year and recognizing the widening support his event enjoys.
“There’s a really big community that we connect with through the show,” Lucas says. “That’s just really amazing. A lot of people in Lancaster County believe in what we believe in. I think it’s a really great experience to have a big community out there.”
