Sol Treasures brings creative performance to South County.

Sol Treasures is an arts center and gallery in King City founded eight years ago to make up for arts de-funding in area schools.

“There was very little to offer in King City when there were many cuts to the arts programs across California back to 2008,” Executive Director Betsy Oltmann says. “Sol Treasures filled that niche.”

They filled it with adult English classes, music and painting lessons, crafts workshops, afterschool programs and most visibly through performance groups: Children’s Musical Theatre Program, Timshel Adult Choir and Show Choir.

Timshel is their adult choral group that puts on two big concerts a year, including a Christmas-themed show, and otherwise can be seen and heard at local hospitals, businesses and caroling gigs.

Show Choir is akin to junior glee club for wee little ones to perform publicly in the community, if they’re not old enough for prime time.

And prime time would be the largest of the performing arts outlets, the Children’s Musical Theatre Program, founded six years ago. It’s no more than $75 for kids to participate, lower than most comparable programs. Monterey County Gives! funds would help subsidize that fee and pay some staff salaries.

Sol Treasures takes its shows “on the road” to three area elementary schools, racking up attendance of about 2,000 children from South County. (It only costs kids $1 to attend). Counting the general public, in 2015, more than 5,500 attended Sol Treasures’ shows.

They’ve done Dr. Doolittle, Little Mermaid, The Wizard of Oz and Annie. The cast, volunteers, customers, directors and choreographers are all recruited locally. Oltmann says they reflect the demographics of the area: The audience is typically 88-percent Latino; the cast, 55 percent. So although the shows are in English, audition materials and flyers can be in Spanish to be more inclusive.

“Our children’s theater programs is one of the few opportunities – and often the first opportunity – that these children have to see live theater,” Oltmann says.

The point of all this is not just entertainment, but building confidence, teamwork and self-esteem. “There are some kids who are not athletes or scholars, but they have talent when it comes to the arts,” production manager Barbara Pekema says. “Some kids really blossom and it helps them feel good about themselves. As soon as we are done [with one show], parents ask when’s the next show so their kids can get involved again.”