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Donation will help support kids camps at the Kootenay Gallery

Castlegar’s Pinnacle PAC making art camps more accessible.
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Val Field, executive director of the Kootenay Gallery of Art (second from the left) accepts a donation from the Pinnacle Professional Accounting team including, from left to right, Doug Johnstone, Willow Enewold, Laura Kristian, Melissa McCready, and Mel Carley. The money will help fund the art camps. Photo submitted

The Castlegar office of Pinnacle Professional Accounting hosted a Chamber of Commerce Business after Business event in December. Pinnacle asked for donations from the attendees in exchange for a chance to win gift items. The event raised $340, which Pinnacle doubled to $680 and donated to the Kootenay Gallery of Art.

The gallery will use the funds for the annual Kids’ Art Camps. Specifically, the money helps to keep camp fees lower so a wider group of children have access to the program. This also means the gallery can offer the instructor a higher wage than they could without the donation.

In recent years, the gallery has approached the West Kootenay Teacher Education Program to help recruit camp instructors. As a result, the gallery is able to hire teachers-in-training, often with fine art backgrounds. The instructors bring enthusiasm, creativity and skills, and gain work experience which helps them in their career search.

This year’s camps will run from March 17 to 19 and March 24 to 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. In mid-February, there will be a registration sheet sent home with students in Castlegar and Robson schools from Grades 3 to 7. The camps are popular and almost always fill up completely.

For more information about the art camps, contact the Kootenay Gallery at 250-365-3337 or kootenaygallery@telus.net.