Sunflower Creative Arts Inc.

“Organization provides a copy of the completed form 990 to each board member for review and comments prior to filing. Appropriate changes made where necessary prior to filing.”

“The organization has a conflict of interest policy. The board regularly and consistently monitors and enforces compliance with the policy, and annually reviews and signs the policy. Whistleblower policy a member of the board was appointed to be the compliance officer and reporting procedures are outlined in the policy.”

“Compensation for the executive director is examined by an indepedent committee of the board of directors. Compensation is compared to compensation of executive directors of similar organizations.”

“Upon request such documents are provided to requesting party.”

“Sunflower's mission is to empower children to be confident, creative and compassionate through play, nature and the arts. Sunflower creative arts provides a unique and diverse collection of arts and educational programs for children and families. Sunflower's work is grounded in the belief that hands-on learning experiences in play, nature and the arts are absolutely essential for healthy human development. The pillars of sunflower's educational philosophy are respect for the individual, learning through experience and learning within community. Our programs nurture the creative spirit, promote children's community engagement, and support parents in their work of raising strong children. A key component to fulfilling our mission is to provide children with opportunities for learning through play, nature, and the arts, while increasing the community's understanding of the importance of these experiences for healthy child development. We offer early childhood programs which teach communication and parenting skills to parents while guiding children's development through hands-on, play based activities. In this environment, we model nonviolent conflict resolution skills for all ages. We also offer additional creative arts programs, a theater program, parenting programs, and a community service club for children. We sponsor several community building events each year. Through fundraising, we aim to make our programs available to all who seek them, regardless of their ability to pay.”

“Last year, with the support of our donors and volunteers, sunflower made a difference in the lives of 277 families - the largest number enrolled in sunflower programs in our history- in classes ranging from parent/child to preschool to after-school to summer camp. Parent education is an important part of what we do at sunflower. We delivered education to families through social media and email, as well as 67 hours of formal parent education, including parent toolbox workshops and one-on-one conferences with seedlings and little seedlings parents. In addition, sunflower teachers offered hundreds of hours of informal support throughout the year. For the second year, sunflower spread the play = learning message to 23 student observers, from lynn university college of education and palm beach state college, exposing future teachers to an alternative and proven educational model. Sunflower staff and volunteers brought play, nature and art to over 900 families at free community events like gather in the garden monthly potlucks, let's g.o. (get outside) family nature exploration, byopicnic to the beach and the annual ice castle festival & play day. Sunflower volunteers donated nearly 4,000 hours of time and talent, as parent helpers, event organizers, and in countless other ways. The partnership between sunflower roots & shoots and the delray beach children's garden continued to grow, giving club members, ages 5-12, the opportunity to learn through community service. 273 families leaped to the challenge at our annual hop, skip & a jump-a- thon playful walkathon. Our generous supporters raised a record-breaking 21,476 for sunflower programs, with over 300 donations from 80 participating teams. Our donors are superheroes for play in a mere 24 hours during great give 2017, we added 14,259 to sunflower's need-based scholarship fund, which is also supported by a generous 20,000 grant from the batchelor foundation. Form 990 part iii 4b in 2015 sunflower purchased and renovated a property, creating our current home in delray, which allowed us to grow from serving 133 children in 2014 -2015 to 304 in 2016-2017. Our seedlings preschool has nearly doubled in size from 40 children to 78 children in the same time frame. We added a second two morning session of little seedlings for 2-year olds and a full summer camp program as well. Our multi-year capital campaign is underway capital gifts allow us to reduce the debt we acquired with this purchase, freeing resources to invest in our children for even greater community and family impact. Thank you to all who have supported this important goal so far. Total project expenses: 1,371,971 capital campaign goal: 1 million money raised to date: 370,928.35 (including donations, pledges and grants)”