Grace Fisher Foundation Summer Solstice Celebration

A unique community event is happening this Sunday at Tucker’s Grove Park in Goleta. The Grace Fisher Foundation is organizing an all inclusive Summer Solstice Celebration and lunch for special needs families.

“There’s going to be face painting and art and a free family picnic and I’m hoping for 75-100,” Grace told NewsChannel 3.

The Foundation organized a similar event back in April with hands-on crafts for the entire family, including a mosaic table project and lessons in Grace’s special mouth painting technique that she’s honed in the year and a half following her debilitating illness from Acute Flaccid Myelitis.

“It looked like all the kids had a really great time,” Grace said.

Grace has incorporated her two passions in life into her rehab and therapy: music and art.

“I love water color.”

Three examples of Grace’s artwork sit on the family’s piano. One depicted a girl on a tree swing, another showed a buck on a mountaintop and the third was an impressive image of Paris’s iconic landmark, the Eiffel Tower.

“Art was so pivital in my recovery and I’ve found a need for it in Santa Barbara,” Grace said. “It brings me so much joy to see the other kids have the same reaction I did when I started experimenting with art in rehab.”

Thanks to the Grace Fisher Foundation, art therapy is expected to bring more color to the Santa Barbara and Goleta communities on Sunday.

The free family event goes from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. Sunday, June 25, in area #5 at Tucker’s Grove Park at 805 San Antonio Creek Rd. in Goleta.