The Northern Indiana Lakes Festival will now have interactive arts activities thanks to a Kosciusko Leadership Academy white paper project.

“When our KLA group set out to promote the arts within the community we needed an avenue to engage a large audience,” said Amanda Zambrano, 2013 academy graduate. “By developing an arts component within this existing festival we will immediately provide a way for our community to interact with the arts.”

The Lakes Festival is held June 7-9 in Warsaw and Winona Lake. During the festival, Zambrano and her group members, Ginger Packer and Sheena White, will implement their project titled Art Around the Lakes.

This will include a lake-themed art display to showcase local artists. The group is looking for artists to submit their lake-themed pieces for viewing. Artwork by the winners of the 2013 Wonderful Water Student Art Contest will also be on display.

In addition to viewing artwork, festival attendees will be able to create their own works of art through stations like watercolor bubble art, a chalk walk, a community canvas, a fish coloring contest, fish prints and sand bottle art.

There will also be an instrument petting zoo for community members to try out musical instruments.

To submit lake-themed artwork for the display, go to www.lakesfestival.org. The registration deadline is June 5.

The Lakes Festival is organized by Kosciusko Lakes and Streams, a center for water research and education at Grace College, with sponsorship from Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Biomet, Zimmer, CenturyLink, Kosciusko County Community Foundation, Louis Dreyfus, Silveus Insurance Group and Trupointe.