FALMOUTH – Sea Strokes of Maine Decorative Painters will hold its second annual Decorative Painting Art Auction on Sunday, Aug. 29, at the Woodlands Country Club.

The silent auction and viewing for the live auction will begin at 1:30 p.m. The live auction will start at 2:30 with auctioneer Buzz Card calling.

The purpose of the auction is to raise funds to benefit Sea Strokes’ commitment to the Memory Box Artist Program Inc. and to the continuing education of decorative painters in the art of tole painting.

The Memory Box program was started as an all-volunteer effort to provide decorated boxes to be given by hospital bereavement counselors and nurses to the families of newborn infants who die in the hospital or are stillborn.

The boxes help to acknowledge the importance of the brief lives of the babies lost by so many families.

The program serves 681 hospitals and has distributed more than 64,000 boxes since it started in June 1998. The program needs 2,474 boxes a month and there is a list of hospitals waiting to be added to the program. New hospitals are added as new painters volunteer to help meet the need.

After six years, it is still an all-volunteer program and all the funds donated go toward administration of the program and production of boxes to program hospitals. In July 2003, the Memory Box Artist Program received its IRS Status 501(c) 3.

Sea Strokes of Maine Decorative Painters provide memory boxes to Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine Medical Center and Mercy Hospital in Portland, Parkview Hospital in Brunswick and York Hospital.

The funds allocated for continuing education by the chapter are used to subsidize painting classes with professional teachers, to provide free classes at chapter meetings and to grant stipends for leadership to attend painting conferences in order to bring new knowledge back to the chapter.

By continuing to educate new painters and expanding the talents of seasoned painters, Sea Strokes of Maine Decorative Painters will have members that will help to perpetuate the program.

Information about Sea Strokes, the Memory Box Program and the auction is available from Sally Belisle at 783-3400.