Thirty years ago, a few Peterborough moms decided they wanted to bring more arts education to their children. 

The small celebration of arts they created has become one of Peterborough’s most-beloved traditions – the annual Children in the Arts Festival. Today, Children in the Arts is an all-day event that incorporates visual arts, theater, crafts, dance, puppetry, song, storytelling and music and involves every school, including independent schools, charter schools, homeschool groups and preschools located in the nine towns of the ConVal School District.

The event is always  the third Saturday in May in downtown Peterborough. This year, the event is May 17.

“I’ve met more than one person who told me they moved here because of Children in the Arts,” said Terry Reeves, one of the early organizers. 

In 1993, Jeannie Connolly and Nancy Brown Garrick, who both had children at PES at the time, got the idea to bring arts enrichment into the school. 

“There was just not a lot of arts instruction happening at that time, so we looked around at what we could do,” Connolly said.

The two went to the NH State Council on the Arts and wrote a grant to bring artists-in-residence to PES. The first artist taught fourth-graders how to make films.

“Part of the grant was we had to share the art with our community,” Connolly said. 

Connolly moved overseas before the film project was complete, but Garrick and Laura Hanson organized a showing of the student-made film at the Peterborough Community Theater. This was the very first Children in the Arts.

“That first little celebration was from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and we had a tiny little parade with 15 kids led by the artist Glory B, and we had arts and crafts in the (Unitarian Universalist) church. We still have arts and crafts at the church, 30 years later,” Reeves said. 

Reeves remembers making hundreds or origami flowers with children at that first festival. 

“We decided to do it again the next year,” Reeves said.

The first program for Children in the Arts was designed, printed and donated by Fletcher and Wilder Graphic Design, now Fletcher Design, which has designed and printed every program since for 30 years.

“Jim Fletcher’s kids did the drawings on the program every year, back to year one,” Reeves said. “I think we have art from all four of his kids, all different ages.” 

The second year, the committee sold advertisements in the program for the celebration, but decided the project was too time-consuming and switched to a “one ask a year” model to request support from the community. The second Children in the Arts celebration included window displays, marionette performances from the New England Marionette Theater, which was housed in what is now the Mariposa Museum; and a paper boat race. 

The third year, the organizing committee grew to include Soosen Dunholter and others. The first year of the “big puppets,” which became a staple of the parade for decades, was 1997. The famed Vermont theater troop Bread and Puppets performed at an early parade, inspiring Reeves and other original board members to create their own big puppets.

For decades, giant papier-mache representations of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama were staples in the CITA parade. 

“This year, we are making a big effort to bring back the big puppets, and we have a whole new generation of young people who have taken that over, and it’s just wonderful,” Connolly said. 

Reeves said the original puppets are now scattered around the valley “in people’s barns.”

“We should really try to round them all up someday,” she said. 

In 2004, CITA had its first themed event, “Here Comes the Sun.” Reeves remembers that her son created the poster for the second theme, “Helping Hands.” 

“Now, the ConVal graphic arts students create the posters. That is huge for us, that has been a long relationship. The kids do incredible work, and we get to go in and pick which poster we would like to use,” Connolly said. 

Connolly and Reeves were co-chairs of CITA until Tina Kriebel, the current chair, took over in 2013. Over the years, the board has included artists, educators, parents and young adults who grew up participating in the festival. 

Reeves and Connolly are proud that in 30 years, CITA has never been canceled for weather.

“We had snow one year – eight inches! – but we did it anyway. We always get together at Nonie’s for breakfast before the event,  and we saw the snow coming down and we thought, ‘Oh boy.’ During the event, the streets were bare, but all the venues were packed with people. The theater, the town hall – people showed up,” Reeves recalled. 

CITA was canceled for two years during the COVID pandemic. Instead of hosting a live event, the CITA committee filled window displays of children’s art throughout downtown Peterborough. 

In 1998, inspired by the work  of lantern artist Gowri Savoor, Connolly started the holiday Lantern Parade as a precursor to the summer Children in the Arts festival. 

“Initially, we thought we would do the lantern festival in the summer, but it’s too light out. You need the dark to appreciate the lanterns. So we made it a holiday event,” Connolly said. 

Connolly, who for many years was the arts integration specialist for the ConVal School District, brought  Savoor to ConVal’s elementary schools to teach lantern-making to the students. 

“She went into schools and made lanterns with kids, and she came back the night of the parade with a bunch more ideas. She wanted to put tea lights up on the hill – and we did what she said and she was right. It was absolutely magical,” Connolly said. 

Reeves and Connolly still go into all the area schools to teach lantern-making. 

Each year, artists-in-residence come to work with local students. One memorable artist was sculptor James Grashow, who created cardboard fantasyscapes for the festival.

“One year, he created the ‘Aquarium of the Imagination’ all out of cut cardboard, and when he was done, you felt like you were going under the sea,” Connolly said. “He went into all the different schools and worked with the kids and with the adults, he was there for a week. He made this unbelievable  huge octopus for the parade. I think they still have the shark  at AES.”

Another year, CITA featured the New Hampshire band Recycled Percussion, which has gone on to national success.

“We got them when they were still cheap,” Reeves said. “They built instruments with the kids and played them.” 

Reeves credits longtime Well School art teacher Ra Eldredge for the school’s wonderful creations. 

“We just love seeing what they are going to come up with every year at The Well School,” Reeves said. 

Both Connolly and Reeves said that the board has been careful about managing growth over the years. 

“We’ve chosen to have it be just the ConVal school district. We had to limit it somehow,” Reeves said. “We used to advertise all over the place – Boston, on the radio – but we don’t do that anymore. You don’t want it to get too big; we don’t need to advertise out of our school district. This is a local event, for local residents.”

The organizers also ask the Peterborough Police Department not to approve vending licenses to outside vendors who are not part of the festival.

“All our food vendors are nonprofits, raising money for schools and children,” Reeves said. 

Most local schools and many area nonprofits host booths with homemade food at the CITA “food court.”  

Reeves and Connolly are thrilled the festival is still going strong. 

“I hope it’s a legacy that we are leaving behind in the community. My grandson, who is almost 5 will be coming this year – it’s the first time I will be here with my grandson, for our 30th year,” Connolly said. 

“It’s just a wonderful community event,” Reeves said. “And we are so fortunate; we have so many wonderful people involved; it is in its second generation, and we think it is just going to keep going.” 

For information about Children in the Arts go to childrenandthearts.org.