Featured Member

Featured Member

Arts Corps works with kids from low-income families to foster a sense of personal possibility and ownership in their world through engagement with the arts. Their mission is to provide greater community access to diverse learning opportunities, specifically to those that use art as a tool to nurture critical thinking, individual power, and creativity.

Arts Corps’ programs are based on five guiding principles:

1. Always be about the kids. Arts Corps’ teaching artists adapt courses based on the interests of the children they work with, spotlighting the childrens’ own ideas while providing enough structure to produce a successful learning environment.
2. Great teachers only. Arts Corps employs only accomplished professional artists who are also experienced teachers.  Teachers must love children and have a passion to spark their creativity. The artistic and cultural backgrounds of their teachers are as diverse as the children they serve.
3. No one gets turned away. Students pay nothing to attend. Arts Corps asks only that their students genuinely want to participate, and that they make the most of what Arts Corps provides.
4. Go where the kids are. Courses are offered throughout King County in students’ own neighborhoods—community centers, YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs, and school facilities.  Criteria for site selection is that no less than 50 percent of the students served by a facility partner must qualify for free or reduced lunch.
5. Do what no one else does now.  Less than half of Seattle schools have arts curricula, and sports and recreational after-school programs outnumber arts programs more than 10 to one.  Arts Corps is leading the field in providing arts education opportunities for children in underserved communities—the proof is in the demand for their innovative and important programs.  In just five years, Arts Corps has increased the number of children served by their programs by 500 percent. Meanwhile, demand for Arts Corps classes has grown substantially, far exceeding their current ability to supply them. 

Through their programming, Arts Corps serves a critical role, providing much-needed arts education for underserved youth—not only to enrich their lives, but also to give them avenues to nurture critical thinking, individual power, and creativity.