School’s Out=Art’s In Kicks off! A new partnership between the Fund for the Arts Cultural partners and Metro Louisville Community Centers. Sponsored by AT&T and the Community Foundation of Louisville.
As you know by now, the Fund for the Arts is serious about Arts Education. Our 5×5, Teacher Arts Grants, and Hear the Music! programs all provide access to the Arts for local school schoolchildren. But what about when they are out of school? Don’t you agree that the arts can be a great outlet for all of that extracurricular energy?
Well, the Fund for the Arts took steps Friday towards making this a reality with the launch of School’s Out=Art’s In!, a new partnership with Metro Louisville community Centers. The goal of School’s Out=Art’s In is to make the arts accessible to children across Jefferson County by providing programming in the summer camps at the 13 community centers administered by Louisville Metro Parks. Every summer, community centers program a variety of programs for neighborhood children; however, few have had the funds to engage artists or organizations to provide arts camps. Through School’s Out=Art’s In!, the Fund for the Arts will make grants to community centers, for arts programming that suits their needs and interests. Arts programming will be provided by Kentucky Museum of Art & Craft, Kentucky Shakespeare, Louisville Visual Art Association, Stage One Family Theatre, and Walden Theatre.
While many schools have cut or eliminated the arts from the school day, research has shown that the arts have a significant and positive impact on children. Not only do they provide recreation, but they help students academically and socially. The recent study, Doing Well and Doing Good by Doing Art by James S. Catterall, shows “consistently more favorable outcomes for students involved in the arts – higher achievement, less dropping out, and better attitudes about school and community”. Because School’s Out=Art’s In is a partnership with community centers, it will predominantly serve students who are economically disadvantaged; in fact three of the centers are located in public housing projects. As these students have been found to have over half the involvement with the arts as their more affluent counterparts, the benefits of the program will be all the more important.
