At Lincoln Inspired we have a firm belief: We think that if everyone gets together and gives a little, we can achieve a lot.
This philosopy was at the heart of our community-focused arts festival that we presented in the beautiful, historic city of Lincoln in May 2013 - thanks to crowdfunders like you who helped with our first campaign! People pledged their cash, audiences came and everyone was inspired and left wanting more. We reached over 5000 people including 1000 young people through our education programme, with over 60 events ranging from storytimes to Lord Melvyn Bragg, a walk with a dalek, comedian Mitch Benn, youth choirs, visual art exhibitions, children's authors, Urban herb Walks and A Bear Hunt!
And now we are full of inspiration and hope it is time to do it again! Planning and fundraising has begun ready for the 2014 festival which is due to take place from 6-11 May, working with lots of venues and communities across the city once more, including the university of Lincoln, Lincolnshire Showground, Lincoln Drill Hall and schools from across the county.
This time around, we are focusing our crowdfunder campaign on gaining support for our Children's and Young People's programme - This will cover everything from storytime sessions for our lovely littlies and under 5s to drama based workshops and events during the main festival, such as Are You Going on a Bear Hunt and Where the Wild Things Are - where children between the ages of 3-11 explore crafts, literacy and drama-based games, making friends, building confidence and participating in the arts. It will also include our fringe programme, where we work with schools across the county and help to create an exciting, action packed schools package of author visits, creative writing workshops, poetry workshops and more. We have already confirmed as part of this for 2014, our patron and author of The Thirteenth series Georgia Twynham who will visit our main arts centre for a large schools event. The cost to schools and young people for this is kept at an absolute minimum and we are also able to offer many free events during the festival and this is all down to you and the wonderful support we receive from you! Every £5 pledged goes straight to the work we do, and helps a young person experience the arts - many for the first time.
We are really excited about the possibilities that the second edition of Lincoln Inspired will bring, and are also looking forward to taking Inspired on Tour to the Lincolnshire Show next year with a two day artistic programme for young people too...but all of this can not happen without the generous support of all our lovely crowdfunders.
So please, join us today, pledge £5, spread the word and the love, share us on twitter and facebook and help us to create a successful campaign and inspire many new generations!
Join the journey and let's inspire and celebrate our creativity together. Remember, alone we won't get far - but together we can achieve so much.
A BIG Inspired thank you and love from all of the volunteers behind Lincoln Inspired 
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