Jerry’s Joins the Cow Parade for Charity

Jerry’s sponsors and purchases a painted cow to benefit the NC Children’s Hospital!

This past fall and winter, Raleigh, NC played host to the internationally famous Cow Parade, a community-driven art event designed to benefit local charities or organizations. As Raleigh is the hometown of Jerry’s Artarama, of course we were excited to participate!

Cow Parade consists of, well, cows, and lots of them! Artists are provided with a fiberglass “blank” cow, which they can decorate however they choose — many artists choose to use aspects of the community or state as their theme. After a “parade” in which the cows are displayed at various locations for a couple months, they are taken down, spruced up, and put up for public auction.

Proceeds from Raleigh’s 2012 Cow Parade go to benefit the North Carolina Children’s Hospital, based in Chapel Hill, NC. The Children’s Hospital works with pediatricians and hospitals across the state to provide healthcare for sick or injured children. In addition, the NC Children’s Hospital focuses not only on the child, but on the entire family, providing care and support for all. With doctors expert in all pediatric and pediatric surgical subspecialties, the NC Children’s Hospital diagnoses and treats more than 70,000 children from across the state of North Carolina each year. When it comes to worthy beneficiaries, it doesn’t get any better than them!

Is it any wonder we were chomping at the bit to participate in this fun and charitable event? Jerry’s Artarama of Raleigh sponsored a cow designed by professional artist Micah Mullen, who we’ve been thrilled to work with in producing some educational art DVDs and whose artwork we greatly admire! The cow’s name is Giovanni, and his design reflects the beauty of North Carolina’s landscape. One side shows the calm reflection of North Carolina’s beaches and coastal region, and the other the majesty of the NC mountains. And of course, Giovanni is painted completely in Micah’s unique impressionistic style, using acrylic paints from right here at Jerry’s!

Isn’t he awesome? When time for the auction rolled around at the beginning of February, we couldn’t bear to part with our Giovanni — so we bought him! Giovanni is now ensconced in his new “pasture” at the Jerry’s Artarama Raleigh retail store.