Art programs for 3,500 in-need New York children

On behalf of everyone at Arts For All, we’d like to wish you a happy holiday season!  This year, Arts For All worked hard to refine our mission and vision to better support our aim of offering accessible artistic opportunities to kids in the NYC area who face socio-economic, physical, or emotional barriers to exploring the arts while building self-confidence, self-expression, teamwork, resilience and creativity in the children we serve.

We’re excited to share some AFA highlights from 2013.

Thanks to the generosity of many individual donors and a $2,400 prize from Global Giving, we produced a children’s theater tour this fall.  Arts For All presented E. Gray Simon’s version of the classic tale Pinocchio for over 2,500 students all over New York City.  Each student and teacher received a study guide to further explore the themes of teamwork, learning right from wrong and the importance of family and friends presented in the play.

We are excited about our new partnership with Sobro in the South Bronx.  This summer, five teaching artists taught residencies in dance, poetry, visual art and drama at two sites. Our relationship has continued into the school year with an after-school chorus program for teenagers.

We also held our first documentary film program, lead by Teaching Artist Franklyn Strachan, for youth at the Incarnation Children’s Center, a nursing facility that provides specialized care for children and adolescents living with HIV/AIDS. This program was a huge success and we’re seeking funding to offer this program at the Incarnations Children’s Center again in 2014.

This fall, Arts For All was thrilled to collaborate with Amy Losak, a Senior Vice President at Ketchum Public Relations in New York, on a new program for second graders at P.S 163 in the Bronx which brought to colorful life the lyrical poetic legacy of Amy’s late mother, Sydell Rosenberg, a public school teacher, ESL teacher and published American haiku poet who lived in New York City.  Arts For All Teaching Artist Vidho Lorville led six visual arts workshops that used several of Ms. Rosenberg’s haiku as teaching tools. Under his instruction, the students created visual art inspired by the short poems. Teaching artist Shawn Shafner, who presided with Vidho over the first and final workshops in the series, also helped facilitate the children’s understanding of haiku, telling them that they should try to “see” poetry everywhere, even in the small moments around them, and make art from those moments.

With over 30 workshops each month, we are reaching over 3,500 children in NYC each year. Without your dedication to Arts For All, we’d never be able to reach as many in-need children.  This December, Arts For All is excited to participate in a Global Giving fundraising campaign.  Organizations that raise the highest amount from at least 30 separate donors throughout the entire month of December stand to win cash prizes of up to $3,000.  This holiday season, please consider making a donation to Arts For All on our Global Giving page.  Your gift will truly go a long way to support the students we serve.  Thank you for your continued support.  We look forward to another great year of Arts For All programming in 2014.

Happy Fall!  School is back in session and Arts For All has a full season of programming underway, thanks to your generous support!

Our Literacy Through the Arts Program is in full swing at both PS 15 and Hamilton Heights School. Literacy Through the Arts is an ongoing program which focuses on increasing kindergarten through second grade children’s phonemic awareness and letter recognition through a multi-arts curriculum focusing on movement, music and visual arts in order to improve their reading, writing and verbal expression.

Some of our other programs include a Haiku and Visual Arts Workshop for second-graders at PS 163, run by artists Vidho Lorville and Shawn Shafner, an after-school drama program for fourth-graders at PS 69 in Staten Island and on-going dance and drama workshops for second-graders at Weeksville elementary school in Brooklyn. Special events this fall include hosting a mask-making table at Halloween parties for both New Alternatives for Children and the Puppetry Arts Theatre’s Halloween Carnival in Park Slope.  Also, this fall our annual Audience Project will bring a professional production of “Pinocchio” to over 2,500 under-served children in New York City. For a complete list of our fall programs, click here.

Earlier this year, Arts For All Teaching Artist, Franklyn Strachen, spearheaded our first Documentary Creation Project at Incarnation Children’s Center.  The 3-day intensive workshops taught young people living with HIV/AIDS the tools to express themselves through video.  Franklyn shared his thoughts on the overwhelming success of this program in a recent post on Arts For All’s blog. 

Here is a snippet of that blog. (click here to read the entire post.)

“FS:I recently worked with the Incarnation Children's Center in Washington Heights. The center houses children living with HIV/AIDS. I worked with a group of about 10 students ranging from the ages of 7 to 21. The hardest part of working on this project was my own fears and expectations of what these children would be like. Sick, angry and upset with the world is what I was prepared for. What I encountered were kids. Regular kids. AIDS was a part of their life but it wasn't their life. They were very opinionated and considered the space theirs. It made it easy for them to show me around and document what they felt was important.  

AFA: How did this experience affect you?  Are there any moments that stand out?

FS: My preconceptions about living with AIDS were shattered. Considering how much information I have lived with concerning the subject I have never interacted with people who have it so intimately. These children have the same dreams and flaws that all kids have. I was happy to learn that. I learned that not only do they want children they can have AIDS free children. When I returned a week later to drop off the DVD the comfort level and excitement to see me again stood out for me.” 

 Read the rest of this interview here.

In addition to our usual fall programming, Arts For All hosted a Professional Development day for all of our teaching artists, key volunteers and staff on September 8, 2013. The overriding refrain of the day was “we’re here for the kids.”  The PD day was informative, community-building and overall, a huge success!  Arts For All is fortunate to have such a talented, committed and professional team of teaching artists, staff and volunteers.

Thanks so much again for your belief in the work that we do.  With your help, Arts For All is bringing artistic opportunities to over 3,500 in-need kids in New York City this year!  We welcome any feedback you might have on programs or any ideas you might have for bringing our message to a wider audience.

All the best,

Jessie Kilguss
Development Associate
Arts For All