Young Imaginations will create two new music and dance programs at low-income elementary schools in the North Bay, providing 500 students in Kindergarten through 3rd grade with high-quality arts education during the school day. Integrating the arts into the early educational process has been proven to have substantial social-emotional benefits, and it is our core mission to provide that benefit to all Bay Area children.
Young Imaginations serves some of the lowest income public schools in Marin County. These schools are designated as federal Title I schools - meaning that a majority of the students are low-income. Over 75% of our students live under the Federal Poverty Line, struggling with food insecurity and a lack of affordable housing - major obstacles to their social-emotional well-being and retaining what they learn in the classroom.
Young Imaginations provides a whole arts education program - we teach 4-10 year old children on a variety of global instruments, in multiple languages (English, Spanish, French, Farsi) and with choreography. Students get hands on practice with instruments, and take turns as performer and audience, finishing each program with a recital in front of their families and staff members. This project will replicate that program in two new schools and bring with it the benefits of robust arts education.
The long-term impact of a comprehensive arts education program, developed for the early childhood level, has been shown through multiple studies to have significant health and cognitive benefits. Young Imaginations believes not just in equity in education, but by extension, in developing sustainable communities and healthy individuals.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).