Twenty nonprofit arts education organizations have been selected to participate in the National Guild for Community Arts Education’s Catalyzing Creative Aging Program. This multi-phase initiative, provided in partnership with Lifetime Arts, is designed to support the establishment of new, professionally-led arts education programs for older adults that increase social engagement and mastery of one or more art forms. Research shows that professionally led, arts education for older adults fosters positive aging.
Participating organizations include:
Art League Houston, Houston, TX
Art Works Now, Hyattsville, MD
Bloomingdale School of Music, New York, NY
Community School of Music and Arts, Mountain View, CA
Creative Arts Center of Dallas, Dallas, TX
Darlington Arts Center, Garnet Valley, PA
Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington, VT
GRoW @ the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills, CA
High Museum of Art at The Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta, GA
Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL
Jacob Burns Film Center, Pleasantville, NY
Museum of Children’s Arts, Oakland, CA
Music Changing Lives, Moreno Valley, CA
Musically Minded Academy, Oakland, CA
Newark School of the Arts, Newark, NJ
Northeast Iowa School of Music, Dubuque, IA
Powers Music School, Belmont, MA
Presser Arts Center, Mexico, MO
Rhapsody Arts Center, Verona, WI
Studio Arts Boulder, Boulder, CO
“Now in its second year, the Catalyzing Creative Aging Program is proving to be a highly successful vehicle for broadening access to lifelong learning in the arts,” said Jonathan Herman, executive director of the National Guild. “By building our members’ capacity to launch these programs, we are inspiring community organizations to serve more older adults and to develop innovative new models of service. We are proud to partner with Lifetime Arts, a nationally recognized leader in designing and disseminating model creative aging programs for active older adults, to catalyze this growth and innovation across the nation.”
Through this program Lifetime Arts will provide training and technical assistance for eight months via a series of workshops, webinars, and video consultations designed to increase each organization’s capacity to serve older adults through skill-based, participatory arts programs. Ten of the participating organizations will be selected — through a separate competitive application process — to receive seed grants of up to $7,000 from the National Guild to implement new creative aging programs beginning in fall 2019.
“We are proud to again partner with the National Guild to enhance its members’ capacity to develop, evaluate, and sustain successful creative aging programs and share what we learn with the field,” said Maura O’Malley, co-founder and executive director of Lifetime Arts. “Training this second cohort will undoubtedly expand the ways in which arts organizations can attract, engage, and serve older adults throughout the country.”
The goals of the Catalyzing Creative Aging Program are to:
- Increase capacity to serve older adults through skill-based, participatory programs
- Provide models of high quality creative aging programs to the field
- Raise public awareness about the benefits of creative aging programs.
The 2018-19 Catalyzing Creative Aging Program is made possible with support from Aroha Philanthropies and the NAMM Foundation.
About the National Guild for Community Arts Education
The mission of the Guild is to ensure all people have opportunities to maximize their creative potential. We accomplish this by developing leaders, strengthening organizations, and advocating for community arts education. Through these actions, the Guild aims to address our country’s widening opportunity gap. The status quo is leaving millions of individuals with little or no access to the creative resources they need to reach their full potential. We believe in the power of the arts to transform lives. Our work helps realize that transformation every day.
About Lifetime Arts
Lifetime Arts, Inc. was founded in 2008 as a service organization with a singular goal: to enrich the lives of older adults through arts education. Lifetime Arts works nationally to build the capacity of organizations, agencies, and individuals to initiate, develop, implement, and sustain professionally-conducted Creative Aging programs for the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population.
