Northern Expressions Arts Collective

Strengthening Families Through Artistic Play

It's been a great year! We are so thankful to all of our funders, business supporters, and individuals who have helped us to continue to bring families together to share opportunities for artistic play.

Our Community Nights at Harrison program has continued to be successful, with many new families discovering and joining us!

First Thursdays: Creativity in the Kitchen, our culinary arts program designed to get families cooking together and learning more about different foods. We have had a blast making meals and snacks together and exploring creative ways to eat and serve them. 

Second Thursdays: Our "Playtime" series! This is where we invite a community leader, artist, or someone making a difference to share with kids how they can grow up to do the same thing they do, and share with adults how we can support them. Then we share a snack and play or create art together. We have even more amazing guests that we are lining up for 2023!

Third Thursdays: Lake Superior Seedlings 4H Club - We joined up with the UMN Extension 4H program to create a new club in Lincoln Park! Being part of 4H enables kids in grades K - one year past high school to learn life skills by giving them opportunities to enter the county and state fair, be part of the 4H Ambassadors program, and take part in other opportunities to learn and develop skills and confidence.

Fourth Thursdays: Imagination Station! This is our "anything goes" program. Sometimes we do a STEAM activity (like our pool noodle boat races last summer, where we also learned the importance of keeping our waterways clean!); other times we bring in a guest artist to share their expertise. Sometimes we just bring a bunch of art supplies to see what amazing things people can make out of them.

This October, we officially brought back our Haunted Happenings trick or treating stop in Lincoln Park! This year's theme was "Ghosts of Gichi Gami," which paid homage to those who were lost to our Great Lake, as well as entertained our neighbors with a band who played sea shanties in the park. We look forward to bringing back Egg-Splosion - our annual egg dyeing and launching event - this spring!

We have secured funding from several organizations that believe in our mission and have chosen to partner with us, but without the families who come to our programs each week, NEAC would be just a good idea on a piece of paper! If you are still deciding which organization to support for Give to the Max Day, we hope that you will consider partnering with us to keep all of these exciting programs free or low cost for all who attend.