Home » Kentucky organizations finalists for National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards

Kentucky organizations finalists for National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards

50 finalists named

FRANKFORT, Ky. (July 7, 2017) — Two Kentucky organizations are among 50 finalists for the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards. The finalists are Lexington’s Central Music Academy and the Louisville Free Public Library’s English Conversation Club.

imgresThe awards, supported by the President’s Council on Arts and Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, recognize outstanding creative youth development programs across the country for their work in providing excellent arts and humanities learning opportunities to young people. The 2017 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award Finalists reflect the diversity of disciplines and settings of these exceptional creative youth development programs that are taking place from coast to coast.

Lexington’s Central Music Academy has provided free musical learning opportunities to more than 900 financially disadvantaged students since 2005, is one of the Kentucky-based finalists. The academy is also one of the Kentucky Arts Council’s Kentucky Arts Partnership organizations.

The Louisville Free Public Library’s English Conversation Club provides a relaxed atmosphere in which non-native speakers practice conversational English. Sophie Maier, the immigrant services librarian at the library system’s Iroquois Park branch, said the club started as a service for adults, but evolved to include children.

Award winners will be announced this fall.

To be considered for a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, organizations must:

  • Operate as a program for children and youth outside of the school day
  • Use one or more disciplines of the arts or the humanities as the core content of its program(s)
  • Concentrate on children and youth who live in family and community circumstances that limit their opportunities — underserved children and youth are the primary participants in the program
  • Involve children and youth as active participants in the arts or humanities experience;
  • Provide participants with ongoing, regularly scheduled sessions
  • Integrate arts or humanities education programs with youth development goals (e.g., enhanced leadership skills, self-confidence, and peer relations)
  • Have been operational for a minimum of five years
  • Be a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, unit of state or local government, or federally recognized tribal community or tribe
  • Be in good standing if a federal grant recipient