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.