Lydia Littwin’s 5-year-old son, Ari, received a potholder loom as a gift last year, and he quickly started crafting the colorful kitchen items — a lot of them.
“He’s very detail-oriented and dexterous, and so it fit his attention span,” Littwin said. “He just started making more and more to the point where we kind of said, ‘Well, wouldn’t it be interesting if you had a place to sell these?'”
Littwin broached the idea of giving some of the profits to a good cause. She and Ari decided half the proceeds would go to Art From the Heart, a program that provides art supplies to patients and visitors at the University of Vermont Medical Center and its children’s hospital. Ari’s aunt is a doctor there, and Littwin is a longtime art teacher who knew of the program’s impact on kids going through a tough time.
“We had all those connections to it,” Littwin said, “and that resonated with him.”
The Burlington family was able to secure a spot during a holiday market at Foam Brewers, and Ari set up a booth. A poster explained his mission.
By the end of the night, he’d sold a couple dozen potholders and made more than $200, about $100 of which was destined for Art From the Heart.
Ari was too busy playing to grant Seven Days an interview, but he later told his mom that he was surprised how many people came to his booth. “It was hard to do all that weaving, all the up and over and up and over … like 200 and a billion times,” she said he told her.
Littwin said the sales experience allowed Ari to squirrel some money away in a bank account and also learn about helping others.
“I do want him at a young age to start thinking about money as something that’s not just for buying toys, but … that other people in the world are to be thought of as well,” Littwin said.
Ari appears to have gotten the message. Next year, he wants to create a holiday market that features child artisans.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Full He-Art”
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2024.
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