Arts Access

Our primary goal was to provide fiber art tours and workshops to youth groups that would not otherwise have experiences in fiber art. Through this grant we were able to bring in 23 different groups of students from 18 schools or community groups. 5 groups reported that they have no art curriculum available to students in their programs and only 3 groups reported that their students had limited exposure to fiber art prior to this experience. The following groups and afterschool programs participated in the Feed the Fibers program during 2013: Cleveland Public Schools, Rushford Peterson Schools, Twin Lakes Elementary, L’Etoile Du Nord School, Green Central Park, Brooklyn Jr High, Horace Mann Elementary, Sioux Trail Elementary, Homeschool Adventure Club, Orono Intermediate School, Southern Cross Homeschool Co-op, Shakopee High School, Lincoln Center Elementary, Yinghua Academy, Galtier Community School, Crossroads Discovery Club and YouthCare. 2: Textile Center will reduce financial barriers to its field trip services. Partners were chosen via an application process and applicants provided demographic information as well as descriptive narratives about barriers to access and the importance of art to students. All of the groups selected to participate were provided with a field trip free of charge, and a travel stipend to cover buses to and from Textile Center. Several groups brought packed lunches to eat at Textile Center, which allowed them more flexibility to be able to fit the field trip around other school activities. Partner organizations for 2013 were primarily self-identified as serving low to middle income students and between 50-90% students on free and reduced lunch programs. Most identified cost for transportation and activity fees being the primary barriers to participation in arts programming.