United Arts Collier has received a $15,000 operating support grant from the Collier Community Foundation.
The money pays for staff. That staff delivers free arts education to more than 1,700 students at Title I schools and community sites across Collier County, and sends a weekly arts newsletter to nearly 6,000 subscribers.
The need is real. Sixty-five percent of Collier County schoolchildren qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Census Reporter data shows 28 percent of Immokalee residents live at or below the poverty level, and communities like Everglades City and Golden Gate have few arts resources of their own. Instead of asking families to travel, United Arts Collier sends local teaching artists directly to partner sites.
Those partners include Grace Place for Children and Families, Youth Haven, RCMA, Guadalupe Center, the YMCA of Collier County, Gargiulo Education Center, Fun Time Early Childhood Academy and the Collier County Public Library system. Programs cover visual, performing, literary and culinary arts, and reach adults as well as students, including seniors, veterans and residents learning English.
The money also stays local. United Arts Collier hires Collier County teaching artists and musicians to lead the instruction, which turns arts education into paid work for the county’s creative workforce.
“Grants like this one are rare, and they’re the reason our programs exist at all,” said Elysia Dawn, CEO of United Arts Collier. “There are children here who have never had an art class, twenty minutes from one of the most vibrant arts communities in Florida. Closing that distance takes a team—someone to build the partnership, hire the teaching artist, get the supplies out to Immokalee. The Collier Community Foundation understands that a strong arts community is a valuable investment. It requires infrastructure, and we’re grateful for their support of the people who are dedicated to building it.”
The Collier Community Foundation awards its annual grants through a competitive application and review process. The dollars come from the Foundation’s discretionary funds, gifted by donors who trust the Foundation to direct resources toward the community’s greatest needs.
United Arts Collier is Collier County’s official Local Arts Agency, recognized by the State of Florida. It works to bring the benefits of the arts to the community’s health, education, economy and quality of life.
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