The stately Oriental Theater in Denver’s Highlands neighborhood. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Here’s a scary question: What student would want to go without art? How do we choose who deserves it and who doesn’t?

That’s the question kids are facing at Edison Elementary, a school in Denver’s Highlands neighborhood that’s been forced to cut their visual arts program for next year. But an organization called Art for Edison is doing something about it. They’re about halfway toward raising the $60,000 necessary to reinstate the arts program for the school’s 575 kids.

The odds are against them: $60,000 is three times this year’s fundraising goal for the entire school, and it needs to be raised in a third of the time. But since February, Art for Edison founder Randy Thomae has been busy holding restaurant nights, art openings, auctions and more for the cause.

It culminates this Sunday at the Oriental Theater, where Art for Edison will hold its MAD Festival (Music, Art and Design) to raise more cash. The event features music from local acts 40 Gallon Still, Alltunators, Liberry, Dualistics, Propane Daisies and Platte River Killers, a live fashion show, art, food and drinks. The best part? 100 percent of the $20 cover goes toward fundraising.

Denver’s Dualistics, one of the bands performing at Sundays MAD Festival at the Oriental Theater. Photo from MySpace.com.

Co-organizer Billy Thieme estimates they’ll still only raise another $6,000-$10,000 at the event — at most a third short of the goal for the May 28 deadline, but they’re still going to use it in whatever way they can.

“Our goal is to hire a full-time teacher and have a 100 percent art program the way we have now,” he said. “But if we end up with $40,000 we’ll just fund as much as we can, which may be a part time teacher or another option.”

Three of Thieme’s four children have gone to Edison, so he’s seen the value of arts in early education first-hand. “As the Art for Edison founder has said, you don’t remember things like standardized testing from school, you remember creative things. Higher brain function comes from experiences in imagination and creative play, and while it’s valuable for us to have logic and mathematics, it’s extremely valuable to get our kids to imagine and create. As a society we tend to cut that first.”

If the event seems self-serving to some of its participants (Propane Daises singer Eric McLennan also has a child at Edison), well, that’s the point. Inspired by Barack Obama’s “change from within” mantra, the organizers took matters into their own hands.

“Frankly, it’s time people started taking responsibility for their own kids this way. If the state can’t fund something, we should stand up and do it.”

Amen.

For more information on the fundraiser, visit Art for Edison’s website or the Oriental Theater. (Sunday, May 28. 4335 W. 44th Ave. Doors at 5:30 p.m. Show at 6. $20; $40 VIP pass.)

Full disclosure: Billy Thieme is a contributor to Reverb, the Denver Post’s music blog.

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