Students from Flying Hills School of the Arts in El Cajon got their paintbrushes out to create a six-panel mural featuring Snoopy and the Beagle Scouts (Woodstock and his bird troops), in a joint effort between Family Health Centers of San Diego, Peanuts Worldwide, and the nonprofit Foundation for Hospital Art. This mural is a permanent gift to FHCSD and the young patients in underserved communities.
“This is a wonderful example of Cajon Valley’s promise of engaging meaningful work within and beyond our community. This beautiful mural from Peanuts and the Foundation for Hospital Art brings with it important benefits for the Clinics’ patients as well as an amazing lesson for our students to ‘paint it forward,’” said Stacey Perkins, principal, Flying Hills Schools of the Arts.
FHCSD is one of 28 sites on four continents currently receiving murals from Peanuts Worldwide as part of its multiyear “Take Care with Peanuts” initiative promoting caring and good global citizenship.
The painting event took place on Oct. 25 at the school. FHCSD Director of Government and Community Relations Shea Benton said FHCSD has worked over the years with the Foundation for Hospital Art to bring art therapy to its clients.
“This event specifically was for kids in the Cajon Valley Union School District at Flying Hills School of the Arts,” he said. “It was centered around National Peanuts Day, [with creator Charles Shulz first collection of Peanut comic strips first printed on Oct. 2, 1950, in seven newspapers.] We partnered with Peanuts Worldwide, essentially all of Charles Shulz’s work and his legacy. They partner with NASA and other organizations on things that support STEM. We worked with the Foundation for Hospital Art. The foundation takes art therapy for hospitals. For the kids, this time of year they like to do this with the Peanuts’ team. Charlie Brown and all those characters because there are so many different movies, comic strips, around October and going into the holidays that are Peanuts themed.”
Benton said around 25- to 30 students, part of the CVUSD after school program, ages 10 to 12, painting prefabricated canvases which is basically paint by number.
“The canvases were shipped to us by the Foundation, which have black outlines of the backdrop and characters,” he said. “This one was Snoopy camping out with Woodstock Beagle Scouts, which is sort of like boy scouts, but they are all birds like Woodstock.”
Benton said it was about two hours of paint therapy, with six canvases, ultimately making approximately 7 feet wide, by 4 feet tall piece of art.
“We send the canvases back to the Foundation, they touch them up, and we will likely hang it in our El Cajon Family Health Center because that is the closest one,” he said. “Many of our kids get their healthcare there, so they can see the work they have done. That their art is bringing joy to our patients, particularly to the kids. It will probably be in our pediatrics department.”
Benton said Peanuts Worldwide, and the Foundation for Hospital Art also donated hundreds of pieces of Peanuts themed art that will be placed later this month throughout all the FHCSD clinics, specifically those with larger pediatric clinics.
“It was a great partnership between the school district, the school, its principal, who were all there,” he said. “When finished, the students received a plush Snoopy stuffed animal to take home with them.”
Peanuts Worldwide Director of Marketing and Communications Hannah Casey said Peanuts Worldwide is the entity that controls the copyright for the Peanuts comic strip, managing the branding, marketing, and licensing of Peanuts around the world.
“Anything from a Peanuts t-shirt to the fabulous program we have with the Foundation for Hospital Art comes out of our office,” she said. “About three years ago, we launched an initiative Take Care with Peanuts, which is all about taking care of yourself, taking care of each other, and taking care of the earth. Under those umbrellas we have a number of initiatives. Under the initiative of taking care of others, we work with some great nonprofits around the world to spread a little Peanuts joy and encourage that caring for others. We have worked with Foundation of Hospital Art since 2020 and have put murals in hospitals all around the world on six of the seven continents. It has been a great program for us and the Peanuts brand at its core, is grounded in art and design, bringing it to children in particularly who are going through challenging times, who are ill or in the hospital.”
Casey said the Foundation works around the world and identifies opportunities, different hospitals and medical clinics interested in these murals.
“In the case of this activation, it started with the Family Health Centers of San Diego working with Flying Hills School of the Arts to do that collaboratively,” she said. “In many cases it can be patients in the hospitals, or healthcare professionals, who paint the murals. In this case, it was the students from Flying Hills.”
Family Health Centers of San Diego CEO Fran Butler-Cohen said, “Mental and emotional well-being are inextricably linked with physical health, so we are delighted that Snoopy, Woodstock, and students from the Flying Hills School of the Arts will be helping impart a sense of joy to our young patients.”
