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# Lofty hopes on display high above the pier
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/lofty-hopes-on-display-high-above-the-pier/
- Published: 2005-03-26T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T06:26:26.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Education, Pier, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

The world’s largest airborne public art display, the Ameriquest Soaring Dreams Airship, will make its maiden voyage over the Santa Monica Pier next week.

The airship will travel to cities across the U.S. in the upcoming months as a symbol of children’s hopes and accomplishments. Since October, more than 6,000 children from a variety of states have participated in creating the flagship for Ameriquest’s Soaring Dreams philanthropy program. Meeting with their afterschool programs, youth organizations and pediatric care facilities, the children used more than 450 gallons of paint and topcoat, 75,000 square feet of tarp, hundreds of thousands of brush strokes with as many as 1,000 paint brushes to produce the 40,000-square-foot canvas as an expression of hope and opportunity for America’s youth. The airship is a work of art measuring five times the size of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

The airship will hover over the pier on Wednesday, March 30, at 11 a.m. SMC airport campus to expand

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 26, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/032605.pdf?ref=smdp.com)