Kaleidoscope Arts Foundation has launched an ambitious $3 million capital campaign as it seeks a new home to continue “empowering children through hands-on learning”.

The charity is exploring all options — but is likely to have to relocate from its property of 20 years on Jubilee Road, Devonshire, after its landlords requested it vacate by June 30, 2026.

Fiona Rodriguez-Roberts, Kaleidoscope’s executive director, said: “We are looking for a new home, so what better time to launch a capital campaign?

“The Home is Where the Art Is campaign will be running actively until we raise enough money to renovate or relocate.

“We need a new home and we are keeping every possible option open. It may be that there is there a government building, a property that we could purchase that would still probably need to be renovated and we have asked if it is possible to take on the renovations that are needed here [at the present location] at no cost to our landlord.”

Kaleidoscope, which launched in 1998 as an education resource for the visual arts, and became a foundation and charity in 2006, went through significant financial challenges last year and was forced to curtail operations.

Mr Rodriguez-Roberts explained: “We had to streamline quite a bit. As a non-profit, we ran programmes for community members who couldn’t afford them. That was the main change we had to make. We had to be really strict and say, if we don’t have the funding in, we don’t run the programmes.

“Our bursary programmes are doing well, we are on an uptick.”

She added: “A lot of our programmes are contingent on having a space and a lot of our donors want to know where our space will be.”

Kaleidoscope is a registered preschool that provides camps as well as classes for home school and after-school groups, government primary schools and preschools as well as workshops and parties.

The charity has a bursary programme as well as a volunteer and internship programme while hiring working artists as full-time employees with benefits.

The charity said it served more than 1,000 children each year, providing “meaningful, hands-on experiences that encourage self-expression, confidence and creativity”.

Shanna Hollis, an art teacher at Kaleidoscpe and the chairwoman of the Bermuda Arts Council, said a number of fundraising events were in the pipeline while some of Bermuda’s most accomplished artists have jumped on board to advocate on behalf of the charity or donate artwork for its upcoming silent auction, Canvas and Cocktails.

Ms Hollis said: “We have different artists that have been in this space before speaking about why it is so important to keep Kaleidoscope as part of the heart beat of the arts in Bermuda.

“The first fundraising event is Canvas and Cocktails, a creative garden party on the evening of November 22 from 5pm to 8.30pm.

“We will have lots of other creative initiatives listed on our website under ‘campaigns’ for people who want to learn more about what is happening or about the history of the space and what we are looking for.”

Artists whose work will be donated as part of the silent auction include Graham Foster, a painter and sculptor best known for his mural The Hall of History at the Commissioner's House at the Bermuda National Museum in Dockyard.

Also featured are Meredith Andrews, a photographer with numerous high-profile international credits, and Nashon Hollis, an artist who won the Visual Artist 2024 Best of Bermuda Award.

Artists, including Carlos Santana, a portrait and mural artist and entrepreneur, and Ingrid Bothelo of sea glass art business Sea Frost Bermuda, will also create work at the event.

Ms Hollis, who, with Kendra Earls, created the iconic mural celebrating triathlete Flora Duffy’s Olympic gold medal win in 2021, also champions the charity’s work.

She added: “To me, truly, there is nowhere else that does the work that Kaleidoscope does on the island.

“It is the only place with that grassroots, hands-on approach. I worry that if you get into a space where you are solely focused on product, you lose imagination, you lose creativity and innovation.

“It is liberating for the next generation of kids to have this authentic voice that they wouldn’t have elsewhere.

“I can’t think of another place on the island that hires working artists full-time with benefits to do what they love to do.

“Had it not been for a place like this, I don’t think I could have accomplished half of what I did.”

More information is available on Kaleidoscope’s Instagram page @kafbda, Facebook page @KaleidoscopeArtsFoundation and website www.kaf.bm/.

Donors can also contact Ms Rodriguez-Roberts by phone on 705-6611 or via e-mail at fiona@kaf.bm