Partners in Arts Participation
ACHF Arts Access
Partnerships are developed between social service organizations and arts organizations to better serve underserved communities. More Minnesotans are able to participate in the arts. Social or human service organizations use arts to help achieve their service goals. Perceived or real barriers to participation are addressed. We tracked student participation and maintained attendance records, comparing this data to data from our pilot project, which was implemented the previous year. Sing, Say, Dance, Play! migrates from school to school during the academic year but returns to the same facility every summer. At our summer facility, 100% of the youth who participated for a second year participated in the pilot project the year before. The positive trend of involvement and engagement is made evident by retention data as well as parent and staff feedback. The majority of our program participants have limited access to live music and music education programming. Many of the students we serve benefit from academic support, exposure to enrichment activities and support in their development of life skills and social development. Through this Arts Learning Grant the YMCA and Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra were able to mitigate all of these barriers throughout the entirety of the program.
The Duluth Area Family YMCA offers Out-of-School Time programs at nine elementary schools during the academic school year and multiple sites during the summer, including at the main YMCA facility. We were able to add Sing, Say, Dance, Play! to the menu of clubs offered to youth involved with our program at no cost. We served over forty-five youth who otherwise would not have access to this type of music education and experiential learning. 2: The power of this partnership comes in pairing the expertise of the YMCA, as a youth development serving organization with the expertise of the Symphony, as a music education and performing organization. Had Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra created this program on their own, without the partnership of a social service organization, the population reached would not have been as diverse and widespread. The collaboration allowed us to take programming to the students, thus serving grades pre-K through 6, increasing its accessibility. This is an ongoing conversation between our organizations. There are additional program sites with youth who have not yet received this opportunity and educational experience.
Other, local or private