Arts Council Silicon Valley & FIRST 5 Santa Clara County Collaborate on First Preschool Arts Initiative of its kind in California

San Jose, CA, May 6, 2005 – Arts Council Silicon Valley and FIRST 5 Santa Clara County today announced the launch of a ground-breaking, arts grants program designed to promote cultural enrichment with a focus on education, accessibility and investment in arts programs for children ages 0 through 5 and their families. With $250,000 in funding from FIRST 5 for the initial year, artists are being placed in preschool settings and grants are being given to select arts organizations to conduct arts activities for children under the age of six.

The Arts Council selected the participating artists from an existing database that houses professionals with extensive teaching backgrounds and experience working with children K-8. Five preschool sites around the county were selected by FIRST 5 as pilot demonstration sites. Organizations selected to participate currently receive funding from Arts Council Silicon Valley. These organizations have been rated excellent by peer review panels and are committed to serving young children.

"I would like to see this grow into a larger program," said Bruce W. Davis, executive director of Arts Council Silicon Valley. "Zero through five years old is such a critical stage for brain development. The arts tie into that so effectively. That is why I am so passionate about this program."

Selected artists and sites are:

• Susan Dee Cummins – a visual artist placed at Go Kids, Inc. in Gilroy
• Mark Engel – a visual artist placed at Estrella Family Services in San Jose
• Kristen Kusanovich – a dancer placed at Arbuckle School in San Jose
• Gertrude Turner – a visual artist placed at Barron Park Preschool in Palo Alto
• Craig Ward – a musician placed at Family Learning Center at Rosemary Elementary school in Campbell

Selected organizations are:

• Association of Viet Arts (AVA) – a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating, nurturing and promoting Vietnamese American Arts. AVA is partnering with the Milpitas Public Library to create two additional visual arts and movement programs for children.
• Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA) – enhances the quality of life in our region by engaging our diverse community in high-quality arts education, performances and exhibitions. CSMA is expanding its current preschool program by engaging bilingual faculty and offering scholarships and financial aid so that no child or family is turned away. CSMA’s project expands their preschool arts classes at their facility in Mountain View and into a special preschool program at Castro Elementary in Mountain View.
• Kaisahan – a Filipino dance company dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Filipino culture through dance and music. Kaisahan is adapting a portion of its dance program for young children. Kaisahan’s project engages next generation dancers at Hoover Community Center.
• Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) – supports Latino artists to create and showcase new work in the visual, literary, and performance arts to help define, interpret, and transform society. MACLA is in collaboration with “Friends Outside”, a nonprofit organization that provides support and assistance for inmate families, offenders and ex-offenders, to create an arts component for children and their mothers. MACLA’s projects take place at Friends Outside in San Jose.
• Oriki Theatre – a nonprofit community-based theater, that provides opportunities for our communities to have a shared experience of the real Africa, its people and their way of life through a unique combination of dance, drama, music, poetry, chants, folk stories, and the drum. Oriki is serving multiple preschool sites to teach African dance, call-and-response singing and drumming. Oriki’s projects are in partnership with Palo Alto Child Care.

"Integrating the arts into a quality pre school experience is critical in ensuring our children enter school learning and ready to begin their journey to reach their full potential." Said Jolene Smith, Executive Director of FIRST 5 Santa Clara County. "This collaboration with Arts Council Silicon Valley has enabled us to effectively reach out to the young children and families we serve."

About Arts Council Silicon Valley
Incorporated in 1983, Arts Council Silicon Valley is an independent, nonprofit arts agency dedicated to providing funding and advocacy support, and fundraising and marketing services to the region’s arts organizations and artists. As the official state/local partner with the California Arts Council and the County of Santa Clara, Arts Council Silicon Valley is now the largest nonprofit arts council in the state. Over the past 12 years, the Arts Council has distributed nearly $7 million to local arts and cultural organizations, individual artists, schools, and community groups.

About FIRST 5 Santa Clara County
Research shows that a child's brain develops most dramatically in the first five years of life and what parents and caregivers do during these years to support their child's growth will have a meaningful impact throughout the child’s life. Based on this research, California voters passed Proposition 10 in 1998, adding a 50 cent-per pack tax on cigarettes to support programs for expectant parents and children ages prenatal through age 5. FIRST 5 Santa Clara County supports the healthy development of children through age 5 and enriches the lives of their families and communities through an annual community investment of approximately $28 million.