Flying High: PS 132’s Kite Festival

The 6th annual PS 132 Kite Festival kicked off with flying colors—literally—in McCarren Park on Saturday afternoon as neighborhood teachers, parents and children gathered on the softball field to do arts and crafts, watch live entertainment, play in the sun and, of course, fly homemade kites.
The funds raised at this year’s Kite Festival—with the exception of 10 per cent, which will be paid to the Parks Department for the use of the space—will go towards creating and maintaining a yoga program for PS132 students, a service that will be physically, psychologically and emotionally beneficial for children continually put under stress from standardized testing.
Each year the Festival is funded primarily by a Parents As Arts Partners (PAAP) grant, designed to support innovative programs for New York City public schools, allowing them to work in partnership with both nationally renowned and locally focused cultural organizations to engage parents and families in school arts activities. In this case, the grant goes towards funding a kite-making workshop in which parents and children work together to create their very own homemade kites to showcase at the Festival.
“At PS 132, it’s about cohesiveness, between children and parents, and between different kinds of people,” said Lisa Purdon, a parent and the Arts and Crafts chairperson at the Kite Festival. “The kite-making workshop is great, because it gives parents and children an opportunity to work together.”
Purdon, along with several other PS 132 parents, was responsible for applying for the original PAAP grant for the first Kite Festival in 2004. Since then, the Festival has grown bigger and better each year—even in the face of financial difficulties. Last year, PS 132 was able to secure nearly $8,000 in corporate sponsorship, but because of the economic crisis, a mere $2,500 of private funding was donated to this year’s festivities—but you wouldn’t know it from the showing. The Hungry Marching Band provided musical entertainment, followed by a dance performance, a yoga demonstration and a karate presentation, among other main attractions. In addition, the materials for the arts and crafts stations were all donated, recycled or found, and all food was donated from businesses in the community.