The inspiration for The Charles H. and Betty A. Curry Living Love Foundation is my mom, Betty Ann. Mom taught us all how to balance the crazy stuff life throws at you with love, laughter and bucketfuls of beauty. Among mom’s favorite phrases (at least the ones I can report here ;-) You gotta work with what you got; never say I can’t or the word hate, because once you’ve said it, it will devour you.

Whether it was being a devoted wife and mother, interior designer, fashionista-- rockin’ out her girlfriend’s eyebrows with a svelt arch before a party--painting, drawing, enjoying some good times with music, friends and great food or offering safe harbor for my buddies when their families were havin’ hard times, mom was a lovely example of how to live life with grace and spiritual abundance. These things helped her move through the very rough times, especially the hardships she experienced as a child. It is one of the reasons she was such a champion of love, self esteem and goodness building in children.

A supernova of spirit and light, when Betty Ann Chapman Curry left us to continue her spirit journey in October of 2005, PoP started The Foundation. Our street name is Living Love. Kids Love Arts© is the grassroots, grant-making, programmatic leg of The Foundation. Our job is to spread mom’s simple message of love, peace and understanding across America…starting with the babies, as mom would say. We do that through doing art with kids, introducing them to their own beauty and the wisdom, perhaps untapped that they have naturally--within. It is working.

-Kelly J. Curry