The Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance (PRAA) and 1889 Foundation are pleased to announce the Creative Health Impact Grant Award recipients for the 2017-2018 funding year. They are:
Bottle Works Ethic Arts Center: Mindful Arts Initiative. This project will provide students from low socio-economic backgrounds the opportunity to participate in the Mindful Schools program, which helps them learn mindfulness while engaging in the arts. Mindfulness is the quality of deliberate attention, bringing purposeful awareness to one’s experience. These practices create an environment conducive to learning while reducing stress. The arts component will include visiting artists providing workshops in various forms of the arts.
Children’s Aid Home: CREATE, or Children Releasing Emotion through Art Therapy Expression. This art therapy program will be offered to children in partial hospitalization programs, providing them with an outlet of comfort, hope, and expression.
Community Arts Center of Cambria County: The Language of Art. This program will provide an artistically enriched educational opportunity for the Deaf and hard of hearing community, at no charge to the participants. Two six-week art courses will be offered to adults, and two workshops for children. An exhibition of student artwork will be held at the conclusion of the courses.
Johnstown Concert Ballet: Movement that Matters. Students aged 5 and up from the Greater Johnstown School District and at Christ Centered Church will have the opportunity to participate in dance classes from every genre of movement, meeting twice a week over the course of the school year.
Johnstown Symphony Orchestra: JSO Music Education Programs. This grant will expand the JSO’s educational outreach program with regular offerings of master classes, collaborations, school-day concerts, and mentorships for young musicians in the Johnstown Symphony Youth Orchestra. It will also expand the JSO’s “Share the Music” program, making free or low-cost music instruction available to disadvantaged youth in our community.
Laurel Arts: Art in Motion. This public art project will install painted bicycles at biking trailheads in small communities, serving as visual milestones between each location.
The Learning Lamp: Positive Behavior Interventions (PBI) Initiative. The PBI initiative and therapeutic arts programming will help at-risk children develop critical social and emotional learning skills, such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
Mount Aloysius College: Opening Minds Through Art. This program pairs dementia patients with trained volunteers (in this case, Mount Aloysius undergraduates) for art-making sessions. The resulting artwork will be exhibited for the public.
