LBIF Coloring Book Raises Funds for Art Studio in Ukraine

The Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences has produced its fifth annual coloring book. This year it’s a collaboration with local business partners and a fundraising vehicle to support an art studio and school called Aza Nizi Maza in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

The books are filled with 18 works of art by students of the art school, translated into line drawings/colorable illustrations by LBIF board member Tracey Cameron, and sponsored by the 18 Blai Business members. Each artwork in the coloring book includes the students’ words as text, translated into English.

LBIF member and watercolor painter Olga Choulindina is from Kharkiv and attended the school herself. She and her son Dmitry Choulindin are personal friends of the studio owners and have served as a connection for outreach.

The Tomko family, owners of Wally’s Restaurant in Surf City, is personally invested the project and funded a portion of the printing cost. Wally’s is also a pickup point for the coloring books (minimum donation $5) and will donate $1 from every sale of a children’s meal all summer, as indicated on the menu.

“We love to give back when we can to the community and to causes that are special to us,” co-owner Anya Tomko said. David’s Dream and Believe is another organization Wally’s supports, she said.

Anya Tomko is 100% Ukrainian. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. as small children in 1949. Today she co-owns Wally’s with her brother-in-law Mike Tomko, who was moved to tears when he saw the Ukrainian kids’ artwork.

Dmitry Choulindin said as soon as “Russia decided to become evil,” he started doom-scrolling. He checked in with family and friends, including Aza Nizi Maza owner Mykola Kolomiets, who founded the art school in 2012 with his wife, Maria, on the principles of education and inclusivity. The day the war began, the studio became a bomb shelter. The current collaboration among Kolomietz and his students, partly represented in the coloring book, is a poster diary titled “What I See.”

The situation in Kharkiv is dire, Choulindin said. Clean water is an issue. Showers may be weekly.

The subway has reopened, last he heard, but “the city is still on life support. A lot of the men are fighting, so you’ve got a city full of women and terrified kids,” stuck in dangerous and scary conditions. But caring adults can “distract them by letting them do what they do: draw their worries away.” In the current circumstances, he said, art is akin to prayer.

The studio is working pro bono, he said, but they keep it open because it’s helping the young artists to cope. “This is a form of therapy; this is a fun place,” he said.

Money that gets sent to the school will help buy art supplies and anything else the students need, he added.

LBIF Executive Director Daniella Kerner said her heart went out to the children because she knows firsthand the positive lifelong impact of arts-based summer camp experiences.

The first print run produced 1,000 coloring books; the first stack of 75 at Wally’s went fast, according to Tomko, so a second run is planned.

Tomko underscored the need to keep the momentum going even after the initial shock of the news wears off.

The Tomkos communicate regularly with family members still in Ukraine, Anya said, “to see how they’re doing, what they need, and we show them pictures” of compassionate volunteers collecting donations and raising money. “When they see the world is coming together to help, it keeps them encouraged,” she explained.

“We have to help the children and families,” she added, “because the rebuilding is going to take at least three times as long as the destruction.”

LBIF plans to collect donations all summer – via lbifoundation.org, by mailing a check to (or visiting) LBIF at 120 Long Beach Blvd. in Loveladies – and will send a check to Aza Nizi Maza by Sept. 1, Kerner said.

— Victoria Ford

victoria@thesandpaper.net