What Is This?

Bring your kids—or just yourself—and spend an afternoon making something beautiful.

This is a free, open community art day filled with color, creativity, and just… being together in the park. No experience needed. No cost. Just show up and make something.

Sponsors

Cascade Forward would like to thank the following sponsors for helping to make this event possible. It’s cooperation like this that makes a community great!

The Chalk Mural

This is the heart of the event.

We’ll start at the gazebo in R.A. Long Park and build a massive, community chalk mural together.

Draw flowers. Rainbows. Messages. Weird little creatures. Whatever you want.

We’ll spread outward from the center, filling the sidewalks with color as far as we can go.

We’ll also be capturing an overhead photo of the finished mural—something the whole city can look at and say we made that.

NOTE: This is not a political event! We encourage everyone to express themselves, but keep the art and messages appropriate for all ages and focus on something a little more hopeful than politics!

ACTIVITIES

Alongside the mural, we’ll have:

Rock painting (Cowlitz County Rocks style)
Face painting
Make-your-own pinback buttons
Bubble Mania

Everything is free and open—jump into whatever you want.

FREE ART SUPPLIES FOR KIDS!

As part of the Rubble Flowers project, a Cascade Forward initiative, we are giving away packs of art supplies for kids. Any attendee is free to take a pack (one per person). The kits cater to different age groups and levels of interest.

Daisies: For young kids. Includes a box of crayons, a coloring book, and a pack of sidewalk chalk.
Tulips: For tweens, teens, or more artistically inclined littles. Includes a pack of fine tip markers, a more advanced coloring book, and a pack of sidewalk chalk.
Roses: For teens or the more artistic tweens. Includes drawing paper, drawing pencils, colored pencils, an eraser and a pencil sharpener, and a pack of sidewalk chalk.

We’re doing this because we want to spread the love of art and foster creativity in all kids in the community - regardless of income level. When your kids have used up their Rubble Flowers kit, feel free to come to one of our events (like our Community Stands) to pick up another one!

Cascade Forward is known for showing up when things are hard. But that doesn’t just mean protests.

Sometimes it means helping people get what they need. Sometimes it means speaking up.
And sometimes it means creating something good, right here, together.

When things feel heavy—especially for kids—hope matters.

And hope doesn’t always come from big speeches or big plans.
Sometimes it comes from a sidewalk covered in color, made by your neighbors.

Our community can do great things. Let’s make this one of them, and show everyone what we can do.

Where is Arts in the Park?

We’re holding our event where we prefer to hold all events - in the middle of RA Long Park at the Longview Civic Circle.

Get Directions