Philadelphia's ART-REACH Named National Community Asset Awardee

Philadelphia's ART-REACH named national Community Asset Awardee by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' Office of VSA & Accessibility.

Two additional Philadelphians, Roger Ideishi and Dani Rose also received awards for their work in creating a more accessible arts sector.

During the 19th Annual Leadership Exchange for Arts and Disability (LEAD) Conference in Denver, Colorado this month, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts awarded Art-Reach of Philadelphia with the Community Asset Award. The award recognizes the achievements of cultural arts organizations that continually demonstrate success with access initiatives, improving accessibility in their organization, city, state, or region. Art-Reach focuses on making the arts in Philadelphia accessible to people with disabilities. In the last year, over 200,000 people experienced the arts in an accessible way through an Art-Reach program.

"I was so humbled to accept the Community Asset Award alongside my entire team at the LEAD Conference" shared John Orr, Executive Director of Art-Reach, adding, "their work is why Art-Reach isn't just changing lives, it's changing the entire city." The award marks the third national award that Art-Reach has received in the last 10 months joining the TIAA Difference Maker 100 Award in October 2018 and the OvationTV Stand for the Arts Award in April 2019.

On this occasion, Art-Reach celebrated with two fellow Philadelphian awardees. During the LEAD Conference, Roger Ideishi of Temple University received the Excellence in Accessibility Leadership Award and Dani Rose of Ticket Philadelphia received the Emerging Leader Award. Together, Art-Reach, Ideishi, and Rose are leading advocates working to make Philadelphia the most accessible city for the arts in the US.

Orr summed up the experience and the work ahead, "Sharing the stage with our Philadelphia friends made this award experience even better. It solidified that Philadelphia has become a national leader in accessible arts experiences. There is still a long way to go but there are amazing organizations and people in Philadelphia who are determined to design a more inclusive world."

Art-Reach is an innovative arts accessibility nonprofit organization determined to make Philadelphia the most accessible city for the arts. Founded in 1986 as a way to increase arts engagement for people with disabilities through ticket distribution, Art-Reach has evolved in its programming to include immersive arts experiences for people with disabilities across every genre of cultural engagement. With a deep belief that disability is a product of design rather than diagnosis, Art-Reach engages the disability community in Philadelphia to increase access at over 200 cultural organizations