OUTREACHFor quite a number of years, the Arkansas Valley Community Concert Association has presented two or three concert performances to Arkansas Valley school children, in addition to their regular concerts for members. These Outreach concerts take place during the day and students are bussed in from their schools. Throughout these years AVCCA has been able to involve students in thirteen school districts.
These performances have been a major contribution to our Coalition’s theme, “Cultivating a Taste for the Arts in Music, Poetry and Dance.” Each year more than 1,000 school children and 115 teachers attend highly professional performances with artists who have traveled the world or even come from other countries like the Moscow Boys’ Choir. These are artists who no single school district could afford but who, through our Coalition, can supplement the Arts for area students. For example, in 2003 on November 13th and 14th the David Taylor Dance Theatre gave an evening concert to the community and two daytime performances to schools, involving 800 students and 64 teachers. The DTDT was an Outreach by OJC’s Multicultural Coordinator, Sallie Hibbs. The Coalition involves Cheraw, La Junta, Las Animas, Rocky Ford, and Swink School Districts from the Santa Fe Trail BOCES, Fowler, Manzanola, and Crowley County School Districts from the Southcentral BOCES, and Lamar, McClave, Springfield, and Kim from the Southeast BOCES. Other members of the Coalition are Otero Junior College and the Arkansas Valley Community Concert Association. |