Classrooms into Studios
By nature, kids are creative beings. And yet, once they get to school, we seem to try really hard to drill and test that creativity out of them. Young Audiences wants to change that. We bring real, live, breathing, professional artists into schools to work directly with children. Our artists transform a classroom into a studio and foster an environment of healthy risk-taking and creativity. And it works!
Young Audiences of Northern California has been transforming classrooms into studios and cafeterias into concert halls since 1958. We are experts at integrating the arts--dance, music, theater, and visual arts--with subjects like math, science, and language arts, and when we do that, learning comes to life for kids!
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Now we need your help. Over the past 10 years, funding for the arts in schools has been decimated. In the San Francisco Bay Area--home to the creative thinking behind Google, Apple, Levi-Strauss, Zappos, and Pinterest--more than 50% of our schools fail to offer a single visual arts class. And more than a third of our schools offer no music classes. At all. How can we foster creativity in our children when we don't give them a chance to make art in schools? You can help to change this by supporting our "Classrooms into Studios" campaign.
When you help us reach our goal of $20,000, we will be able to bring art to life for 2,000 Bay Area students.
And, if we reach our s--t--r--e--t--c--h goal of $30,000, we will be able to transform more than 150 Bay Area classrooms into studios, which means reaching 3,000 kids! Who knows what next great thing will be conceived by a creative kid in one of those classrooms? It's exciting to think about, isn't it? We hope you will want to join the fun by becoming part of our campaign!
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Our essential arts programs are enthusiastically supported by national, state and local leaders, school district personnel, teachers, parents, artists, foundations, businesses and people just like you--people who care about kids and creativity.
Why us?
Young Audiences of Northern California (YANC) is the Bay Area’s premier provider of arts education services. Since 1958, Young Audiences has been connecting students with practicing, professional artists for artistically excellent and educationally effective art programming. Our team provides all the support and training that professional artists need to help them make their art forms accessible to kids. From how to deal with a reluctant 8th grader to how to engage a busy teacher, there aren't many challenges that we haven't faced ourselves and aren't ready to handle.
Over the past three years, we have gone through dramatic organizational change and are rebuilding stronger than ever! Last year, our 54 teaching artists worked in all four arts disciplines—music, theater, visual art, and dance—and created arts experiences of performance demonstrations and long-term, hands-on residencies. Last year, we reached 23,000 students in grades K-12 across the 9 counties of the Bay Area who otherwise would not have had these arts opportunities.
Young Audiences of Northern California is proud to work with some of the finest artists in the Bay Area. Among our roster of artists are National Endowment for the Arts fellows, Grammy nominees, and national touring performers. We partner with and support community artists in all art disciplines who are both exceptional practitioners of their art forms and skilled educators.
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Whether you have $10 or $10,000 to give, your gift will come alive in the hearts and minds of our future artists, thinkers and scholars. And our business model allows for incremental growth: the more money we raise, the more kids we can serve!
Here is how the costs break down for our $30,000 stretch goal:
- Fees paid to Artists: $ 8,000
- Art Materials: $ 1,500
- Artist recruitment and training: $ 7,500
- Insurance: $ 2,000
- Planning / Coordination with Schools: $ 5,500
- Travel to Schools: $ 500
- Postage / Printing: $ 500
- Accounting / Bookkeeping: $ 2,400
- IndieGoGo Fee: $ 1,200
- IndieGoGo Credit Card Fees: $ 900
Other Ways You Can Help
Maybe you just can't contribute, but that doesn't mean you can't help.
- Please share this campaign with your friends, neighbors, schools, artists--anyone! Spreading the word helps, we promise!
And that’s all there is to it.
Except to say: THANK YOU!!!
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