Create, Donate, Nominate.
That’s the catchy tagline for this brilliant new social media campaign, Art for Heroes, which encourages people to create art in any form — all to raise money for our wonderful National Health Service.
Raising money for NHS workers on the frontline of the coronavirus crisis, this challenge involves sharing a piece of art that they’ve created with materials in their home. This could be a drawing, a painting, a photo… In the words of Cady Heron: the limit does not exist!
Once participants have finished their masterpieces, they are encouraged to share it to Instagram or Facebook, donate £5 to Art for Heroes, and nominate five more people to take part in the challenge. You’ve all seen your friends running for heroes… well, this requires far less sweating and wheezing, so you’ve no excuse.
Create Art 🎨
Donate £5 ✨
Nominate 5 🖐
All proceeds go to NHS Charities Together, whose mission is to support the welfare and wellbeing of NHS staff in the fight against COVID-19.
Art for Heroes is the brainchild of Ben Chapman and Pete Watts, two friends who have been stuck inside together for the duration of the lockdown. To keep themselves busy, they are both taking part in daily art challenges; creating something based on a topic that they’d set each morning. Not only has it provided a great distraction from the COVID-19 crisis, but it also inspired them to devise this wonderful plan and raise some money for a worthy cause.
Talking about the initiative, Ben says: “The response has been fantastic and we’ve had an incredible variety of people getting involved, from young children to professional artists and photographers, to adults who haven’t picked up a paintbrush for over twenty years!”
Alongside the social media challenge, Art for Heroes have also been running live auctions on some of the submissions. Wildlife photographer, Alfie Bowen, whose work has featured on BBC Earth, is just one of the artists who has donated work to the auction. You can stay up to date with the auctions, and track all of the brilliant submissions, over on Art for Heroes’ Instagram page.