A benefit for Habitat for Humanity’s work in Greene County
One of Iowa’s best-known and most successful artists is helping Habitat for Humanity fund its work in Greene County by coming to Jefferson for a Dec. 7 public reception and a “conversation” that will be the opening event in the third annual Nativity Festival that the Habitat group sponsors.
Sarah Grant, founder and original artist of the art and furniture company “Sticks” in Des Moines, will meet the public at a free reception at Jefferson’s famous Gallup House at 2 pm that Sunday afternoon. She has agreed to be interviewed in front of the crowd by Iowa writer Chuck Offenburger, now a resident of Greene County.
“I love the idea of being interviewed by you,” Grant told Offenburger, after he invited her for the reception. “So, get cracking on your questions!”
Offenburger, now semi-retired after a career as a Des Moines Register columnist, said he has long wanted to have time with Grant for an interview and story. “Somehow it just never happened until now, when I’ve gotten involved helping on the Habitat Nativity Festival,” he said. “I asked her if we could get together for a conversation, and let an audience sit in on it, and that it would not only be fun but we could do some good with it.”
Grant is a native of Ames whose art education was at Iowa State, Colorado State and the University of Iowa, where she earned bachelor and master’s degrees in printmaking and another master’s in painting. Her colorful, fun Sticks art comes not only in individual pieces, but has been designed into renovations of business offices and even whole hospitals, like Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines. The Sticks company has employed as many as 200 over the past 25 years, many of them professional artists. Another of their unique projects was making, carving and painting a table for the Gallup House that tells the story of the American pollster George H. Gallup, who grew up there. More than 100 galleries nationwide sell Sticks work.
Offenburger said that “like so many people in Iowa, I’ve been fascinated watching Sarah’s career and her company Sticks grow. I remember starting to see her in the 1980s, and then it seemed like suddenly, it became a national sensation, showing up everywhere. One thing that has really impressed me is that while she’s a tremendous artist, she also has learned to be a terrific business person – in fact, one heck of an entrepreneur.”
Now both of them are preparing for “A Conversation with Sarah Grant,” as the Dec. 7 event is being called.
At that event, the public will get its first look at a large Nativity display specially made by Sticks for the local Habitat organization, which will offer it in a silent auction. Its dozen pieces will spread about 48 inches wide, with the tallest pieces being about 15 inches.
“A couple of years ago, my wife Carla Offenburger was at a PEO event in Des Moines where Sarah Grant was speaking,” Chuck Offenburger said. “That day Sarah told the story of how the first commission of her professional art career was for a Nativity scene, and Sticks has been making them ever since. From the time when local Habitat volunteers decided to start a Nativity Festival as their one major fundraising event of the year, we’ve been thinking of offering a Sticks display for sale as part of it, but the resources just weren’t available until now.”
This year, Sticks president Rachel Eubank, who is Grant’s daughter, offered the local Habitat group a substantial discount from the retail price of the large nativity. So the group has paid $890. That cost will be the starting, minimum bid in the silent auction, which will be held open from the Dec. 7 reception until the close of the actual Nativity Festival one week later, on Sunday, Dec. 14.
The festival itself is being held at the First United Methodist Church in Jefferson. It begins at 3 pm when a display of 75 or more locally-owned nativity sets will be open for public viewing. At 4 pm, a community concert will be presented in the church sanctuary featuring local church choirs, small groups and two soloists. At 5:15 pm, there will be a soup supper and pie auction – as well as the acceptance of the highest bid made by then for the special nativity from Sticks.
All proceeds will be used for Habitat for Humanity projects in Greene County, including a free-will offering that will be accepted at the Dec. 7 event with Sarah Grant.
