- Last Updated on Sunday, 03 June 2018 13:00
Rep. Bud Cook (R-Washington/Fayette) joined with the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, Fayette Country Cultural Trust and Bentworth School District in organizing today’s 2018 Rural Arts Collaborative (RAC) Spring Institute.
Held at Bentworth High School, the purpose of this event was to share RAC project experiences, themes and project outcomes. It also served as a forum for artists, teachers, principals, superintendents and local government officials to share their stories about how the project has successfully impacted their students academically, socially, emotionally and in their respective communities.
“Today, we are celebrating the success of the Rural Arts Collaborative Education Project and RAC consortium in giving our students the benefit of a professional, hands-on arts education experience, while at the same time, helping to beautify their communities with public art,” said Cook. “Due to the generous financial support of the Benedum Foundation, the cost for implementing these outstanding residential artist education programs for taxpayers is absolutely zero. Again, I would personally like to thank the Benedum Foundation for generously investing to improve our region’s quality of life and supplementing our efforts to attract both employers and employees to the 49th Legislative District.”
The Benedum Foundation is dedicated to encouraging human development through strategically placed charitable resources in Southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Over the years the foundation has authorized grants of more than $410 million.
To date, the RAC project has successfully infused project-based learning into the arts curriculum in 15 school districts, serving more than 4,000 students, including Beth Center, Bentworth, Brownsville, Frazier and Ringgold located in the 49th Legislative District. Local communities benefiting from this program are Beallsville, Cokeburg, Donora, Ellsworth, Marianna and Monongahela.
Each artist residency is either a full semester or academic year placement, working with a lead art teacher or a team of lead teachers in those residencies which prefer a cross-curricular approach. The RAC teaching artists use a project based learning approach, requiring a capstone outcome in the form of a public art piece that can be installed, or a performance or video to create some lasting form of art that will be part of the students, school and community in some way.
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