VFP Announces Sponsorship of Awards for Peaceful Towns Art Competition

Veterans For Peace Chapter 104 in Evansville, in partnership with the EVPL Foundation and Evansville Mayor Stephanie Terry, is pleased to announce Evansville’s Peaceful Towns art competition. Peaceful Towns is an annual project of Mayors for Peace, an international coalition of more than 8,600 cities calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide. Evansville joined the coalition in 2023; this is the first year the city has participated in the competition.

“Peace is a universal yearning, a desire of all people,” said John Michael O’Leary, associate member of Veterans For Peace. “The Peaceful Towns art competition offers children a means to express this desire by visualizing what peace means to them. Such an exercise is worthwhile for anyone, but especially for young people who find their ideals at odds with a world in conflict.”

Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library and the EVPL Foundation are facilitating the competition, which is open to children ages 6 through 15 who live in Evansville or attend school in Vanderburgh County.

Veterans For Peace is underwriting monetary prizes for winning entries in each age category (6-10 years & 11-15 years):

1st place $ 250
2nd place $ 150
3rd place $ 75
Honorable
Mention (2) $ 25

The entry packets, an Arts at EVPL initiative sponsored by the EVPL Foundation, include the exhibit application, rules and official art paper. These packets will be available at all eight EVPL locations from September 28 – October 19. The deadline to submit entries to the library is Monday, October 19. Judging will take place the following week, and winners will be notified by October 30. More information about the contest is available at https://www.evpl.org/posts/peaceful-towns-art-competition/

Mayor Terry’s office will submit the winning entries to the Mayors for Peace Secretariat in Hiroshima, Japan, for consideration in the international competition. Winning entries at this level will be used on document folders that Mayors for Peace uses throughout the year in furtherance of its work to educate and advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons.