PNC Foundation Donates $15,000 to The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts

The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts recently received a generous $15,000 gift from the PNC Foundation's Grow Up Great grant program. This grant will be used to support The Kentucky Center's Literacy ArtStrategy Incubator Program, which works to build emergent literacy skills through arts integrated strategies for young learners.

"We are lucky to have such a giving and philanthropic corporate community," said Kentucky Center President Kim Baker. "This gift from the PNC Foundation will make it possible for The Kentucky Center's Literacy ArtStrategy Incubator Program to expand upon its findings, engage community partners and further early childhood education through the arts."

Last year, The Kentucky Center convened a group of early child educators including University of Louisville professors, pre-school teachers and teaching artists to explore ways that the arts can support the development of emergent literacy skills in young learners. This group formed the Literacy ArtStrategy Incubator Program, which works to implement these lessons with classes of four-year-old children at the University of Louisville Early Learning Campus. This year, the program will collaborate with the co-founders of the nationally acclaimed ArtsLiteracy Project at Brown University for further training in the process of integrating the arts and literacy.

This grant from the PNC Foundation will help fund The Kentucky Center's collaboration with Brown University. In addition, the grant will allow the Literacy ArtStrategy Incubator Program a week-long residency with students in the Community School after-school program at Frost Sixth Grade Academy. The grant will also fund a Family Artful Reading event in the school's neighborhood.

The Kentucky Center is honored to partner with PNC on a number of initiatives. In addition to the ArtStrategy program, the PNC Foundation also supports The Kentucky Center Governor's School for the Arts program and provides valuable operating support.

For more information about ArtStrategy and other education and community arts programs offered by The Kentucky Center, please visit www.kentuckycenter.org/education-community-arts/.