ArtsAVL announces 14 Arts for Schools grantees

Press release from ArtsAVL:

ArtsAVL is thrilled to announce that 14 artists and arts organizations have been awarded the Arts for Schools grant. The grant supports nonprofit arts organizations and qualified teaching artists in Buncombe County providing arts-focused performances, workshops, residencies, and field trips for K-12 students. This year’s awards span five in school programs and nine out of school programs.

“ArtsAVL believes that every child in Buncombe County deserves to experience the benefits of the arts,” said executive director Katie Cornell. “Exposure to the arts is proven to increase academic success and social emotional learning, but not every child has access to arts programs. That is why we created the Arts for School grant to help fill in the gap.”

Teaching artist Nica Rabinowitz received a grant for her Connecting Through Cloth Afterschool Program, connecting art to her students’ everyday life. “In the classroom and beyond I always remind my students to embrace their mistakes,” she said. “Connecting young people to their inherent creativity helps with critical thinking, problem solving, social emotional learning, and resilience. There is not a right or wrong answer in art.” Connecting Through Cloth will also allow students to to learn about the plant and animal materials that are grown in and around Buncombe County, adding additional layers to their arts education experience.

The Asheville Chamber Music Series (ACMS) aims to provide a chamber music performance completely free of charge to area students. “The Asheville Chamber Music Series (ACMS) has as its primary purpose bringing world-class chamber music to Asheville and Buncombe County. But we also spend more than ten percent of our annual budget on music education for young people,” William Smyth, President of ACMS, shared. “A live professional performance of string music is rare in many young people’s lives. We hope to inspire an increasing number of young people to see the ultimate musical outcome of their studies by artists who were not so long ago once young students themselves.”

Each of the awarded artists and organizations, with support from grants like Arts for Schools, ensure that students at underserved schools receive the benefits of vital arts programming.

The 2024-25 Arts for Schools grantees:
Anna Kimmell, theatre artist and educator, will offer an immersive residency to fourth grade students at Johnston Elementary in Spring 2025. Students will build original narratives, hone language abilities, gain theatre skills, and express themselves creatively, connecting playwriting and performance to their English/Language Arts learning module. Funds will be used for artist fees and theatre supplies, including scripts, costumes, and props.

Asheville Chamber Music, Inc. will engage the Isidore String Quartet for a matinee performance in front of over 600 students as part of the city-wide Asheville Amadeus Festival. The interactive concert experience featuring professional performers of color is designed to appeal to area students, whether or not they currently play stringed instruments. The Arts for Schools Grant will allow Asheville Chamber Music to help schools cover the costs of transportation to the performance and to cover student ticket admissions, with the goal of providing a completely free performance for all schools interested in attending.

Asheville City Schools Foundation’s (ACSF) Teaching Artists Presenting in Asheville Schools (TAPAS) Program is an inclusive, arts-based education program that employs local, high-quality artist residencies in grades K-12 to create and deliver rich arts-based instruction across curricula. ACSF will use Arts for Schools grant funds to support the expansion of the TAPAS program into three Asheville City Schools’ 21st Century Community Learning Centers’ (CCLC) afterschool programs: Hall Fletcher Elementary, Lucy S. Herring Elementary, and Claxton Elementary.

Asheville Symphony Orchestra is hosting the Young People’s Concerts program, designed to serve as an immersive musical experience and educational tool to introduce Asheville City and Buncombe County fifth-grade students to the world of classical music. The program will serve approximately 2,000 Asheville City fifth-grade students when it returns in March 2025. Each concert is curated to include entertaining selections from the orchestral repertoire that are carefully chosen to align with educational themes relevant to the student’s curriculum.

Asheville Creative Arts is a professional arts organization that produces, presents, and creates innovative, performance-based, visual, and multimedia works for multigenerational and multiethnic audiences. The Arts for Schools grant will support their new extracurricular series, Authentically Me. Designed for K-5th grade students, each class will focus on a specific arts skill that will help students explore things like how their bodies move, how and where emotions are felt, and will use theater activities to build social emotional skills imperative to success later in life.

Buncombe County Schools Foundation (BCSF) will use the Artist Support Grant to provide artist fees for its Global Grooves program, which will boost arts exposure through a live performance to all 7th grade students in Buncombe County Schools. BCSF will work with their partner in education, LEAF Global Arts, to provide musical performances. Students will attend a 45-minute musical performance and have the opportunity to interact with the performers after the show. Curriculum resources will also be provided to the teachers to give background knowledge as well as follow-up reflection questions to assess the impact of the experience and learning.

Colaborativa La Milpa’s Raíces Emma Erwin is an after school program for Latine middle school students focused on traditional Mexican Folklorico dance. It also serves as a way to strengthen cultural identity through learning traditional folklórico dance and its history while also speaking Spanish. Raíces will hold an average of eight folklórico community performances a year which, too, is foundational to community pride and strong relationships. The Arts for Schools Grant will be used to pay teaching artists and purchase performance wear to meet the need for their middle school youth, who tend to grow quickly from year to year.

Dancing Drum will utilize grant funds for School Drum Day – Drumming Up World Music. School Drum Day is an interactive multicultural program for K-5 students to learn and play rhythms from West Africa, the Caribbean and Brazil. Students will have the opportunity to play several drums and percussion instruments in a hands-on, interactive workshop. Students at W.D. Williams and Pisgah Elementary schools will experience the thrill of making music together with their classmates as they experiment with exciting rhythms, vocal chants, musical games and teamwork activities.

Journeymen, a program that provides teenagers with arts programs and community groups that incorporate creative projects, music, and wilderness programs, will focus its funding on their Journeymen Afterschool Multicultural Music Program. The afterschool program for teenage boys focuses on inspiring self expression and creativity through making music and art. With grant funding, they will cover more student fees for art materials, recording sessions for our music class, as well as artist fees for the mentors who oversee the art and music activities.

LEAF Global Arts will use the Arts for Schools grant to support its Songs for Peace project in an after school environment, engaging 5th-8th graders with local BIPOC songwriters in music and video creation. In addition, LEAF Schools & Streets will collaborate with YMCA of Western North Carolina and Owen Middle School to facilitate unique choral music experiences. Songs for Peace gives students opportunities to learn about music from different cultural influences and gives a voice to youth to share messages of inclusion and unity.

Local Cloth will launch a new pilot program: Farm to Fiberarts In the Blue Ridge (FIBR). With FIBR, children will create fiber art with Local Cloth during summer camps and after school programs. Led by teaching artist Emolyn Liden, Local Cloth will host a teen sewing camp and a Farm to Fabric summer camp for ages 8-13. The rich textile history and tradition of the Blue Ridge Mountains will be brought to the hands of future generations by Local Cloth’s teaching artists during the summer of 2024, and in Sand Hill Venable YMCA afterschool program during the 2024-25 school year.

Nica Rabinowitz will expand her Connecting Through Cloth program, opening it to students across Buncombe County. The Arts for Schools grant will allow Rabinowitz to offer 12 full scholarships to students from Buncombe County Schools and Asheville City Schools whose families self-identify as needing financial assistance. By opening Connecting Through Cloth Afterschool programming to students at the middle and high school levels, Rabinowitz will broaden the types of projects to include turning weavings into garments, as well as teaching students to felt, sew, and manipulate fabric. Participating students will have access to locally farmed and foraged plant and animal fibers, connecting to our region’s fiber farming network.

Playground Stage Children’s (PSG) Theatre partners with Buncombe County Schools to offer after-school theatre classes to elementary school students. In the 2024-25 school year, PGS will offer musical theatre after-school classes in the fall and musical production classes in the spring. During these classes, children meet with their Playground Stage Teaching Artist after school to learn musical theatre technique and learn how to put together a performance. Arts for Schools funding will allow PGS to offer scholarships for K-6th Grade classes at Buncombe County Elementary Schools.

Umoja Health, Wellness, and Justice Collective (Umoja) is a Black-led organization working with youth at the intersection of youth leadership, substance use recovery, and advocacy. Umoja will utilize their Arts for Schools grant to support the after school sessions of the John R. Hayes High Steppin’ Majorette and Drum Corp (historically known as Hillcrest High Steppin’ Majorette and Drum Corp). Founded by Elder John Hayes in 1977, Hillcrest was once the largest and best-known Black community-based marching band in Asheville. Michael Hayes, the Founder and ED for Umoja, and Elder Hayes’ son, will lead the Hillcrest program, honoring Elder Hayes’ legacy and allowing youth to build self-esteem through self-expression.

ArtsAVL is thankful for the sponsors that support the Arts for Schools Grant: Dogwood Health Trust, Wanda & Jim Moran Foundation, Gail & Brian McCarthy, Brunk Auctions, and Mills Manufacturing, with additional support provided by Ray Griffin & Thom Robinson. You can learn more about ArtsAVL’s Arts for Schools grant program at artsavl.org/schools. The next funding cycle will open in Spring 2025.