FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, June 14

Contact:  Ryan Mulcahy, Asst. to the Mayor, 266-4611 or
        Mary O'Donnell, Youth Services Coordinator, 261-9122


YOUTH INTEGRATION GRANTS AND A NEW artWORKS SITE

Mayor Susan J. M. Bauman announces funding awards for two initiatives that were recommended by the City's Task Force on Race Relations.  The Task Force recommended that the City develop ways to integrate diverse groups of youth into ongoing recreational and cultural activities.  The recommendation became known as the Youth Integration Project.  The Youth Integration Project was allocated $20,000 in funding by the Common Council in the 2000 City Budget.  

The Youth Integration Project seeks to provide socio-economic and racial/ethnic integration of youth ages 7 - 17 years into a broad variety of recreational and cultural activities. The specific objectives of funded programs include the promotion of cross-cultural understanding and integration amongst diverse groups of youth; increasing the number of youth who have the opportunity to participate and be exposed to cross-cultural programs with youth from other racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups; retention of youth in programs that have historically had minimal diversity in terms of the racial, ethnic and/or socioeconomic status of participants; and increasing the opportunities for economically disadvantaged youth to be exposed to and directly involved with a wide array of high quality recreational and cultural programs and activities (for example club sports, sports teams, visual arts, music, and theatre programs), which are often inaccessible due to costs, fees or social barriers.

Funded projects include: 

· Centro Hispano - Verano de Juventud ($2,500) -
bringing about integration of Hispanics from various countries and backgrounds and youth in the ESL program;

· Centers for Prevention and Intervention - Good Life Project 113 ($3,500) -
a theatrical production involving a diverse group of youth in the development and production of a musical dance and drama performance;

· Kanopy Dance Theatre ($2,000) -
 a scholarship program;

· South Madison Panthers Track Club ($2,000) -
outreach, recruitment and attendance at several regional and national track meets;

· Urban League - MLK Jr. Achieving Greatness through Service ($3,500) -
a Youth Planning Council for Martin Luther King, Jr. Service Day, an event involving several hundred youth from diverse racial/socioeconomic backgrounds in community service;

· United Refugee Services ($2,000) -
development of soccer and volleyball teams;

· Vera Court Neighborhood Center - Summer Opportunities ($4,500) -
for outreach and recruitment to link northside youth with summer activities and programs not ordinarily accessible to them. 

In addition, Mayor Bauman announces a new artWORKS! site.  artWORKS!, a program of the Madison CitiARTS Commission, is a neighborhood center-based arts education program.  The primary goal of the artWORKS! program is to enhance the quality of children's lives by providing them with opportunities for self-expression, a sense of connection with their community and culture of origin, and to improve learning skills as a result of the creative and mental growth that the arts provide.

For the past two years artworks has operated after-school programs three days a week at the East Madison, Packers and Wil-Mar community centers. The Task Force on Race Relations identified arts and cultural activities for youth as one of the effective ways to promote cross-cultural understanding.  Funding from the Madison CitiARTS Commission enables the artWORKS! program to expand to a fourth center -- the Atwood Community Center.

The Atwood Community Center is one of Madison's longest running and largest community centers. Today the center serves an average of 175 children a day through six different programs.  artWORKS! teacher Jennifer Taylor has been able to expand the program beyond serving only elementary school-aged children to also include a middle school program, Girl Neighborhood Power.

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