In 1993, as a mother of three small children, I became the fundraising officer at my local playcentre.  Disillusioned by the fundraising options available I began to look at alternatives. Having been interested in children's art for many years I became convinced that it is a valuable and under-utilised resource. I had no trouble coming up with ideas, and in my usual style my imagination went wild and within a week I had a fully-blown business with nationwide exhibition tours, books written and illustrated by children and arts festivals for children - in my mind that is.

Being part procrastinator and part perfectionist by nature I slowly prepared myself. I began three years of research which included running creativity workshops for parents (with the aim of demystifying art and encouraging parents to see themselves and their children as creative), voluntary teaching of art in local schools and designing and running an after school and holiday programme. I also completed a small business course. Over this period I developed the basic ideas for the business - fundraising activities which actively involved children in an educational and creative way. I focussed on meeting the needs of children, parents and fundraising organisers, with products that would enhance children's original art. Products that the children would be proud of, that parents would appreciate and want to buy, that art teachers would see as a useful resource and that fundraisers would find easy, risk-free, profitable and rewarding to use.

When I felt I was well and truly ready to take the plunge I joined the PTA at my local school and trialed the calendar making process through all its stages, from running the art classes, collecting the money from the parents and organising the orders, right through to making the calendars and distributing them to the excited children at the end. It was an enormously satisfying process and convinced me that this would be a great fundraiser for schools. Sixteen years down the track and hundreds of thousands of calendars - and cards - later I'm more convinced than ever. I feel truly blessed to be part of this business as do the staff who each year work tirelessly to make sure each child's calendar or cards are the best they can be.

• All children are creative.
• Children's art deserves good presentation.
• Art is a vital and enriching vehicle by which children can both understand and explore themselves and their environment.
• Parents and teachers do not have to be 'artists' in order to provide a nurturing environment where children grow up seeing themselves as creative.

Sandra Fiedeldy
Kids Art Works