Bay Arts Alliance’s Kids’ Program

“Amazing” “Exciting” “Fun” is what you will hear Bay County first, third, and fifth graders exclaim when they visit the Marina Civic Center’s Kids’ Program. What the local community might say is that the Arts in Education program at Bay Arts Alliance stands as a godsend for both education and the economy.

The Alliance was founded in 1978, and through the Arts in Education program it began offering free live performances to students at Bay District Schools in 1986. Bay Arts current Board President Robert Wilkos calls the Arts in Education program “our core mission.”

The mission is to enrich the students’ lives by entertaining them. “The objective is to introduce the Arts to children at young ages, to have an impact on them, and open their eyes to opportunities of which they may only have dreamed” Wilkos said.

Bay Arts’ 25-member board believed in Arts in Education so much that when the economy dipped, cutting state funding to arts programs for students, they found a way to keep the program alive.

“We were impacted directly by the recent recession decrease in ticket sales, loss of membership, loss of sponsorships,” Wilkos explains. “We’ve effectively weathered the storm. Our board members came up with new ways to consistently provide performances for the kids via a variety of external efforts (new sponsorships and memberships, increase in Backstage Pass events, Broadway raffles, and tending bar at numerous BAA functions) to benefit our ‘Arts in Education’ program.”

This season, the children’s performances are “The Teacher from the Black Lagoon,” for first graders and “Bunnicula” for third graders. The January 29th performance of “Peter Pan” will be presented to fi fth graders. Last year’s shows included “The Spencers, Theatre of Illusion”, “Ramona Quimby” and “Young Abraham Lincoln”.

Jennifer Jones, Executive Director of the Bay Arts Alliance, especially appreciates performers who are willing to go out to the schools to put on smaller shows in addition to their appearances at the Civic Center. Occupational Therapist and magician Kevin Spencer visited Margaret K. Lewis Special Purpose School and Pyramid School for adults with developmental disabilities to conduct his “Healing of Magic” workshops. “Performers like Kevin Spencer can reach people with special needs. They don’t have limited expectations of students. We love to find artists like that,” she said.

Jones said 100 percent of Bay District elementary schools responded to attend the “Teacher from the Black Lagoon.” She says of the Ma- rina Civic Center, “We have the largest assembly venue between Tallahassee and Pensacola with 2,500 seats.” Although the center was built 50 years ago, the designers had “foresight” in developing the wonderful acoustics of the theatre. Wilkos adds, “The sound effects are positively amazing.”

Jones said “Artists like to perform here because of the Bay County audiences. We try to start kids off in first grade, they become savvy little audiences for the live arts as they matriculate.” And even if some of the Arts Alliance sponsored shows don’t sell out, the “student rush” allows for the sale of discounted tickets an hour before show time for older students, Wilkos notes.

Data from Florida’s Center for Fine Arts Education reports that students who take part in
the arts, for example, have a 15 percent higher grade point average, 34 percent higher graduation rates, and signifi cantly higher scores on the FCAT and SAT. And, the arts provide much more than academic success.

Arts training heightens students’ performance in the world of work as creative thinkers and problem solvers. They are, as Jones says, “plugged into the community, grounded and rounded. Students are more vested in their education and the curriculum makes a positive economic impact on the district budget.”

She said, “We wouldn’t be as successful with the programs as we have if we didn’t have people on our board dedicated to the arts.”

Wilkos explains that the board is made up of business and professional members with an arts background everyone from a marketing professional to a rocket scientist, a massage therapist to an attorney. “We love this arrangement, this mix of people,” he says.

“It’s really a kind of organic growth,” Jones adds. “Something between community and family.”

By Carole Lapensohn, Photos by Savannah Jane Photography