The Healing Power of Art

In Burlingame, on a quiet block of Howard Avenue, a foundation goes about the work of promoting healing. Kids & Art Foundation does not use an emergency room or a research lab, it relies on the powers of a paintbrush, a slab of clay, and the joy of ArtKits arriving in a child’s mailbox addressed not to a patient but to an artist.

Kids & Art was founded in 2008 by Purvi Shah, a Pratt-trained graphic designer, after she navigated through her own experience using art to help her young son Amaey cope with his difficult cancer treatments. Amaey was diagnosed at three and lost his life at nine. “The Kids & Art Foundation is Amaey’s legacy,” says Shah, “and I’m very proud to be able to honor his life by spreading joy and healing through the arts.”

Meeting Children Where They Are

Kids & Art began humbly with one small art workshop, organized with help from artists at Pixar Animation, where Shah’s husband worked. It’s now grown to include a wide slate of compassionate programs, all built around the same founding belief that art helps a child feel like themselves during cancer treatment, not like a patient. As CEO Deb Braun explains, the power lies in how “[Kids & Art] is prescribing togetherness and prescribing joy.” The model rests on what Braun calls “the intentionality of meeting the children and families who are going through cancer treatment where they are and whatever that means on any given day.”

Their programs are based on four pillars: The “Amaeyzing” ArtKits Program with kits mailed monthly into homes and hospitals across the country; Destination Workshops that gather patients, survivors, and siblings in inspiring settings; an Artist-in-Residence program, which places professional artists in infusion center waiting rooms; and their Custom Workshops, shaped around a child’s individual needs at any given moment during their treatment or recovery. 

Since 2008, Kids & Art has reached just under 44,000 children. Alongside these programs, the foundation hosts events that exhibit and sell the young artists’ work. 

Among those artists is 15-year-old Tyler DeCourcey, whose work has traveled through this circle and out into the world. He and his twin brother, Alexander, know just how life changing the Kids & Art program is for a family dealing with a medical crisis. As Alexander says, “It’s really cool to see my brother using art to overlook the suffering in his past.” 

Kids & Art Foundation provides teens like Tyler and Alex a “circle of care,” harnessing the power of the arts to heal children’s hearts and minds during their most difficult battle.