When Holly Holowach, program manager of Weinberg Village Waimanalo, found out that Kailua Elementary School sixth-graders would be painting 10 murals of Hawaiian flowers to be mounted on the wall of the homeless shelter, she didn't know what to expect.

"I just let them go and hoped they would do a good job. But they did a fantastic job. They did an amazing job," Holowach said.

The murals donated to the shelter were a part of an art project that began last November at the school. Every student helped create dozens of pieces of artwork that were donated to a senior center, shelters and other nonprofit organizations in Windward O'ahu.

Funded through a $5,000 grant from the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, the project exposed students in every grade to professional artists who helped them accomplish various pieces — ceramic pottery, batik wall hangings, murals.

"The school doesn't have enough money to provide real art lessons for the kids. With the standards, there's not a lot of teaching time to have an extra art teacher come in on a regular basis. That's where the idea came from to get a grant," said Sherri Fries, a parent who helped coordinate the grant.

"A lot of kids had never done art or played with clay or even painted, so this was a good way of getting real art instruction," she said.

Karen Kiefer, a professional artist with the state's Artists in the Schools program, said the Kailua project was unique because it had a community service aspect for the students in addition to art lessons.

"It allowed the students to feel like they're making the world a better place, while allowing an art curriculum to be a part of the school, since there is very little budget for that," Kiefer said.

Each grade level was assigned a specific project and a nonprofit to work with. The kindegarteners created watercolor paintings for seniors at the Lani Huli Elderly Apartments in Kailua. First-graders made 12-inch stepping stones to be donated to the Windward Spouse Abuse Shelter. Other projects included batik wall hangings for a domestic abuse shelter, ceramic pottery for the Kailua Recreation Center and wall hangings for the Hawai'i State Hospital in Kane'ohe.

"We're so grateful for this grant," said Kehaulani Nakamoto, a fifth-grade teacher at Kailua Elementary School. "Kids need to be offered art as a means of expression. How are they going to learn to appreciate music if it's not in class? How are they going to learn to appreciate the art around them if they're not taught the concepts?"

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.