Art & Culture Live!: Community Collaborations - Carolina Chocolate Drops
Carolina Chocolate Drops brought the African American string band of the same name to Wabasha at the behest of the Wabasha Public Library (Wabasha, MN). The band provided the community with a history and an introduction to African American music. The Media Arts Class from the local school created and edited a video documentary of the performance.
Event Dates and Locations:
March 3, 2010 – Caroline Chocolate Drops performance at the Broadway Theatre (Wabasha, MN)
Partner Organization(s):
National Eagle Center
River Junction Art Council (RJAC)
Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council
Wabasha Chamber of Commerce
Wabasha-Kellogg Community Education
Wabasha Public Library Friends of the Library
Partner Organization(s) Contribution/Role in the Program: The Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council matched part of the honorarium for the band. The Eagle Center, the Chamber of Commerce, and Community Education promoted the event. The RJAC and the Friends provided personnel for development, implementation, and evaluation of the program.
Program Outputs: Outputs are things you can count such as attendance, number of new participants, and the number of attendees who had never been at a similar event, and so on.
340 were able to attend the concert and approximately 20 had to be turned away because of fire code concerns. There were only three people under the age of 18 but otherwise the age distribution of the audience was fairly even.
Measurable Outcomes may be collected by survey, anecdotal responses, post-test; End user change in Behavior, Attitude, Skills, Knowledge, Condition and/or Status
The program managed to achieve an appreciation of African American musical history as evidenced by audience participation in a question and answer session. The attendees indicated appreciation for the musical program in general in the anecdotal survey. Some of the comments included “The arts and cultural scene in Wabasha is changing for the better,” and “There are much [sic] more opportunities for arts and culture than there has ever been in Wabasha.”