Art Without Boundaries - FREE Kids Art Classes!

The Peoria Art Guild is thrilled to announce it has been awarded an $8,980 grant from the Community Foundation of Central Illinois to launch Art Without Boundaries in June of 2025, an exciting new initiative providing free arts education to youth across Central Illinois.

Rooted in the Wallace Foundation’s Connecting Arts Learning Framework, Art Without Boundaries will offer no cost arts experiences, ensuring that all youth under 18 have access to high-quality, diverse arts education. The program fosters creativity, critical thinking, and mentorship by engaging young artists early and empowering them to inspire the next generation.

“This grant will allow us to offer FREE art classes to ALL youth under the age of 18, removing financial and geographic barriers and ensuring that every young person has the opportunity to create, learn, and grow through art,” said Shannon Cox, Executive Director of the Peoria Art Guild. “We are thankful to the Community Foundation of Central Illinois for their support of this program.”

To further eliminate obstacles to participation, we are also partnering with the Peoria Public Library to hold classes at select library branches, and with CityLink Greater Peoria Mass Transit to provide bus passes for students and parents traveling to our class locations. This removes all barriers for children to create with us.

And there’s more, the Peoria Art Guild is excited to announce an expansion of its classroom space at The Shoppes at Grand Prairie. The new space, which will open on May 29, 2025 at 5:30pm with a celebration and ribbon cutting will accommodate more classes and create more opportunities for students to participate in arts programming. The Guild will still have its space in downtown Peoria for teaching and exhibitions.

Opening Celebration/Ribbon Cutting

Peoria Art Guild at the Shoppes at Grand Prairie
5201 W War Memorial Dr Suite 225, Peoria Il 61615
May 29, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Through Art Without Boundaries and this new classroom expansion, the Peoria Art Guild reaffirms its commitment to making the arts accessible to every young person in our community, regardless of financial means or geographic location.