24 OREGON ARTS ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVE ARTS LEARNING GRANT AWARDS

News Release from Oregon Arts Commission
Posted on FlashAlert: August 26th, 2022 1:41 PM

Twenty-four arts organizations will each receive a $10,000 grant award to illuminate the power of the arts for K-12 students through $240,000 in FY2023 Oregon Arts Commission Arts Learning funding, the Oregon Arts Commission announced today. All funded projects feature partnerships with Oregon schools reaching communities across the state. 

“So many schools lack adequate funding for arts education,” said Arts Commission Executive Director Brian Rogers. “We are grateful to these arts organizations for providing creative and enriching experiences for our youth. Arts education inspires further development and creative problem-solving skills, important for Oregon’s future leaders,” he added.

Arts Learning grants are designed to: support high-quality projects that provide a responsive opportunity for learning in and through the arts to benefit K-12 students; foster exchange of knowledge between artists and educators; and impact the achievement, skills and/or attitudes of learners. 

Applications were evaluated by a review panel based on project quality and responsiveness, project support and project impact.

Priority for funding is given to projects that primarily impact schools in one or more of the following categories: Title 1 participation; location within a county with more than 16.9 percent of the population experiencing poverty; or location in a rural community. 

Note: Although grant recipients are listed with their organizations’ base location, the population they reach is typically outside of their immediate community – often in rural and underserved parts of the state. 

Organizations receiving FY2023 Arts Learning grants, and their project descriptions, are:

Architectural Foundation of Oregon, Portland       

To support the Architects in Schools program expansion into more low-income, underinvested urban and rural schools around the state. The project includes a free design residency that integrates into existing classroom curricula with the support of a trained professional in the design industry.

Arts Council of Pendleton, Pendleton

To support delivery of arts education services to 1,900 K-8 students and school educators in Umatilla County.

Caldera, Portland

To support long-term art and environmental-based mentoring and engagement for approximately 175 youth annually (and continuing to scale post-COVID) from underserved communities in Portland and Central Oregon through partnerships with 11 schools.

en Taiko, Portland

To support students’ multi-sensory workshop and residency experience where Japanese Taiko drumming is translated into light as patterns and rhythms of color, intensity and motion to be enjoyed by a broader and more inclusive K-12 deaf students.

Eugene Symphony Association Inc, Eugene

To support Encouraging Young Artists to Achieve, which partners with band/orchestra programs in under-resourced schools and communities to deliver free supplemental music instruction by the Symphony’s professional teaching artists.

Fishtrap Inc, Enterprise

To support Fishtrap’s ongoing youth programming and the development of an arts intensive youth summer camp as a spinoff of Summer Fishtrap youth programming. Funds will help with program development and staffing to sustain and expand offerings for youth in rural Eastern Oregon.

Illinois Valley Community Development Organization, Cave Junction

To Support RiverStars’ 2022/2023 season of sequential dance and theater programming in the rural Illinois Valley of Josephine County.

Josephy Center for Arts and Culture, Joseph

To support youth art programs in Wallowa County including fall art classes, the after-school program, scholarships, classes for at-risk teens, classes in satellite locations and a creature creation/haunted house workshop for teens teaching them industry skills for careers in the entertainment industry.

Lane Arts Council, Eugene

To support Creative Link, an arts integration program pairing artists with teachers and classrooms to co-develop arts-based curricula in schools with majority low-income, rural, migrant and other vulnerable students – and to provide arts integration training to educators countywide.

Literary Arts Inc, Portland

To support activities to increase student engagement through writing by hosting up to 40 semester-long residencies at 11 Multnomah County high schools.

MetroEast Community Media, Gresham

To serve 200 K-12 students at five East Multnomah County schools with hands-on digital media and filmmaking education, encouraging youth to integrate arts and technology in creating their own unique work.

Miracle Theatre Group, Portland

To support Teatro Milagro UNIDAD residencies for Woodburn High School, Nellie Muir Elementary, and Heritage Elementary in Woodburn, Oregon.

Oregon Ballet Theatre, Portland

To support a 10-week dance integration residency program, OBT LAB, at six low-income schools, reaching 650 students and 27 classrooms.

Oregon BRAVO Youth Orchestras, Portland

To support improved long-term outcomes for underserved youth, BRAVO provides in-school and after-school music classes designed to foster healthy peer-peer and adult-youth relationships and increased prosocial behavior.

Oregon Children’s Theatre Company, Portland

To support arts-based classroom residencies and trauma sensitive classroom resources and workshops for public elementary school students in the Portland metro region during the 2022-23 school year.

Portland Opera Association Inc, Portland

To support a new commission and statewide tour to K-12 schools of “Beatrice,” an original opera about Oregon civil rights activist Beatrice Morrow Cannady.

Portland Playhouse, Portland

To support the planning, implementation and evaluation of the 2023 Social Justice Theatre Project and bring the power of creating live performance to students at six middle and high schools in Portland.

Ross Ragland Theater, Klamath Falls

To support the Ross Ragland Theater’s robust performing arts education and outreach programming offered year-round to Klamath County youth and families.

Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Otis

To support arts access with Sitka Center’s Youth Program, providing hands-on arts education to more than 1,200 PreK-8t students in partnership with local schools during the 2022-23 school year, along with a four-week summer art educations series for more than 100 underserved and rural youth in Tillamook County.

The High Desert Museum, Bend

To support Kids Curate, a year-long program that provides more than 50 hours of engaging arts learning experiences to 50 underserved students.

The Portland Ballet, Portland 

To support Young Creative Movers, is a free dance education program primarily for Title-1 schools. It focuses on body skills, principles of organized dance, fundamental movement patterns and musicality, allowing dance to be accessed by all – particularly those historically underserved by ballet.

Wordcrafters in Eugene, Eugene

To support 75 sessions of creative writing residencies, with proven academic and school engagement success, at three Lane County schools: Phoenix Rising (at county youth detention center); Kalapuya High School (for at-risk low-income students); and Elmira High School (rural, low-income school).

Young Audiences of Oregon Inc, Portland

To support teachers and students as Young Audiences implements the Right Brain Initiative’s Equitable Expansion of the Arts, a school-wide plan for arts integration that increases student engagement, equity and success in the classroom.

Youth Music Project, West Linn

To support children’s access to affordable music education and to empowering performance opportunities through our Youth Music Project’s tuition assistance fund.