Dawn Chapman has been making stained glass pieces of art for the last 25 years. When war broke out in Ukraine, she wanted to find a way to help.
Chapman is leveraging her skills as an artist to encourage people to make charitable donations. Until the end of April, anyone who makes a donation to a relief organization can contact her and receive a free “heart” stained glass piece. She calls it “Hearts for Ukraine.”
“I was inspired by some teenagers who did a bake sale, and I thought, ‘you know, if teenagers can do something, I could come up with something.'" Chapman said. "Where were my strengths? And I thought, ‘well, I do stained glass, why don’t I try to incentivize people to make donations?’ So I thought I’ll just give away stained glass pieces to people who make donations, so I created Hearts for Ukraine and created two designs and anybody who makes a donation to any humanitarian aid effort that is helping the people of Ukraine can get a free heart from me.”
Chapman says it takes her 30 minutes to an hour to create each heart. Donors have two designs to choose from, a blue and yellow heart that's roughly three inches in size and a larger heart available to people who donate $100 or more.
She says she doesn’t receive any compensation from the donations. People just need to send her their receipt.
“I receive nothing other than the feeling that I’m making a difference by helping inspire donations that will help the people of Ukraine,” she says.
If you have made a charitable donation to aid in the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, send a copy of your receipt to dawn@dawnchapman.com by the end of April.
Chapman will be distributing her hearts on April 30th at Pinebrook Park.