Volunteers for the Children’s Safety Center in Springdale have organized “Flamingo a Friend for a Child” to raise money for treatment of abused children, according to the Northwest Arkansas Times.

The houses are chosen through a referral process. Whomever gets “flamingo’d” is asked to make a donation of $25 or $50, then refer a friend or family member for the birds to be relocated.

The center’s Action Team members have been placing the flamingos in yards from Rogers to Fayetteville all week and are scheduled to keep it up through June 11, or for as long as the community is willing to help, said Kris Hesson, development director of the center. “As concerned volunteers, we wanted a fun, childlike way to raise money for the center… that embodies the childfocused spirit of the center and allows us to reach out to the community through friends referring friends,” Action Team Chairman Whitney Myers said.

This is the second year of using flamingos to raise funds for the non-profit organization. The center has helped more than 125 children this year and more than 1,600 since it opened its doors in 1997.

Found a fun newspaper story about yard art, and it refers to yard art as, “To some, a blight on the landscape, to others, beauty.”

The article appeared in Blethen Maine Newspapers, and features information from artist Bryce Muir.

“Everybody decorates their yard,” Muir says. “I suspect that Cro-Magnon man took colored rocks and put them in front of the cave. There seems to be an impulse to decorate. The same impulse that drives people to use symbols in art,” says Muir, “drives people to put these (lawn ornaments) out on the lawn.”

Bryce Muir and his wife, Margaret Muir, wrote “Lawn Wars,” a brief look at items that can be considerd yard art.