A note to myself:

-Offer a teen date night. Each week is a different medium.
Gives teens a safe place to go and have fun. Can serve to introduce new mediums and then lead to teens taking more advanced classes or signing up for open studio times.

-Adult date night. Require registration and hire a couple babysitters to watch kids in the rooms upstairs so parents have a little time to create without distraction.

-Create a material donation center. Useful item's are donated rather than ending up at the landfill and other people can then, in turn, find creative materials and choose what they wish to pay for them. Donations help keep the art center operational and provides low cost materials for local artists.
Teachers needing class materials get them for free.

More ideas

While visiting with some Portland area friends this week, we got onto the topic of my grant proposal. Just explaining out loud to someone else gave me some new ideas on how the art center can serve the community.
One idea that deserves further investigation is a summer art camp. We could do several age groups during the week. It would give parents a little time off and give kids something fun to do.
Last summer I introduced my toddler to painting, but being me, I took it a bit further than a coloring book and Crayola watercolors.
I bought two large paintings from a yard sale for a couple bucks. The paintings were horrid, but the canvases are over wood stretchers and measure 2 1/2  feet by 3 1/2 feet. I made a no-sew toddler sized apron out of an old tshirt, pulled out all the tempera paints I had and proceeded to help my toddler make a huge, colorful mess. It was great fun and being summer, most of the clean up could be done with a hose.
We've revisited the same canvas a couple times and now I have a huge, colorful painting hanging on my wall. It makes a great keepsake and is much more durable than paper tacked on the fridge.
So with this in mind, I envision an outdoor painting session, kids come wearing swim gear, a pile of used canvases to choose from and a kiddie pool standing by for clean up. It's outdoor summer fun and art at the same time. The finished paintings make great gifts to their parents and other relatives too.

The First Step

The time has finally come to take the idea that has been rolling around in my head for years and get it out in the world.
I want to open a community arts center in Bonners Ferry, Idaho.
The first step will be to find funding and to that end, I'm working on a grant proposal that has a March 2nd deadline. It's going be tight trying to get everything ready in time (especially the video segment), but I'm confident that I can get a decent proposal created in time.
The bonus is that all this research helps me articulate my goals and research how the art center can best serve the community. All the research ground work will serve me well in future applications and project proposals.