Ukrainian Art for Ukrainian Kids

Over the years we have received hundreds of pieces of art from the children of Ukraine for our international children's owl art contest, held annually in conjunction with our International Festival of Owls. When war broke out, we pulled out all of the art from Ukraine, partnered with the Houston Area Community Foundation, and with the help of volunteer Jayne Overstreet set up a series of online auctions. All proceeds are being donated to UNICEF to help the children of Ukraine, and all winning bidders get a tangible connection to a child in Ukraine. We hope each piece of art will be loved and its new owners will think of the child who created the art and send thoughts and prayers for their well-being.

The first auction ended on March 20 and raised a whopping $101,321 with just 59 pieces of art!!! Four additional online auctions raised another $150,104. The top auctioned piece went for $8,005, with two other pieces going for over $7,000 each. We also raised $3,970 selling sets of Ukrainian owl art cards. All together our fundraising efforts for UNICEF to help the children of Ukraine grossed $255,395.

A big thanks to OneCause for donating a one-year subscription to their online auction software to the International Owl Center to help support this cause!

Many artists attended art schools in eastern Ukraine, so we expect many have been directly affected by the war. We have attempted to contact the schools to let them know we are raising money with their art to help them. We were pleased to hear from the teacher of these two talented young artists (pictured above) that they were able to leave Ukraine with their families. We hope they are safe, wherever they now are.

Each pin is the home or school of one of our young artists.

​Thank you to Catharine Soule for creating this map.