Wings to Fly
PNC Grant to Cleveland Arts Partners Brings Learning, Culture and Fun to Children
Cleveland students gain literacy skills through Toddler Rock at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—one of the preschool arts programs benefiting from the PNC Foundation's Grow Up Great grants.
A three-year grant of $2 million from the PNC Foundation will enable organizations in Cleveland to provide arts education programs and professional development to pre-K students and teachers in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and Head Start centers throughout Cuyahoga County. About 2000 children per year will experience Cleveland's cultural richness and benefit from arts-enriched instruction designed to help prepare them academically, socially and emotionally for kindergarten.
The PNC Foundation receives its principal funding from the PNC Financial Services Group, the Pittsburgh-based financial institution that recently purchased National City Bank in Cleveland. To date PNC has committed over $17 million in grants to projects in early childhood education. The grants are a part of Grow Up Great, PNC's 10-year, $100 million investment in school readiness. According to Eva Blum, chair of the PNC Foundation and director of Community Affairs for PNC, early childhood education became the focus of her organization's giving because that area promised the greatest impact. "If you look at the studies, a disadvantaged five-year-old starts kindergarten with the vocabulary of an average three and a half year old," she says. "The gap gets larger by the time the child gets to third grade and can't read at grade level."
The partnership in Cleveland is called Our Kids and the Arts—A Great Early Start. The four partners—the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Orchestra, PlayhouseSquare and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—plan a range of educational activities for the Head Start and Pre-K classes, professional development for teachers and outreach to families.
"We hope the children will form lasting connections with the arts institutions and develop a love of the arts that will stay with them for the rest of their lives," says Blum.
Music therapist Deforia Lane leads the Toddler Rock program at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Building a Rock Solid Foundation
Deforia Lane, Ph.D, delights in watching those connections develop as she works with preschoolers in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Toddler Rock program, now one component of Our Kids and the Arts. "Many of the kids have never had the Rock Hall experience," she says. "After a few weeks, they walk in there and go to their favorite exhibits. Or a child will point to an outfit in one of the displays and say, 'That's mine!' I love to see them claiming it, making it their own."
Toddler Rock consists of 30 weekly visits to the Rock Hall. Each hour-long session is spent in music and movement activities that help children develop musical knowledge and skills while also building important pre-literacy skills, such as letter recognition, alliteration and rhyme. Lane says the stimulating conversations she envisions happening at home as parents recognize the songs their children are learning also can enhance literacy.
Lane is Director of Music Therapy with Cleveland's University Hospitals Case Medical Center. She developed Toddler Rock in 1999 with Ed Gallagher, Director of Education and Creative Arts Therapies at the Beck Center for the Arts. The program has grown to a staff of eleven board-certified music therapists serving nearly 200 preschoolers and their teachers each week. (For more about the academic, social and emotional benefits of the program, see Lane and Gallagher's article in the May/June 2008 issue of TRIAD.)
Making the Most of Partnership
A new member of the Grow Up Great Advisory Council, Lane says the Cleveland Museum of Art, PlayhouseSquare and the Cleveland Orchestra also have rich arts programs planned. Teaching artists will visit classrooms. Children and families will attend special musical and theater performances. With help from visual artists, the children will make art and explore the museum collection. "I have seen how children can express themselves through music," she says. "I can't wait to see what happens when art and drama are added. I think it will be world-changing for the children, and I don't doubt it will have a similar impact on us too."
The four arts institutions also will work with early childhood teachers on adding the arts to their classroom curriculum and activities. The partners plan four joint professional days, each hosted by one of the institutions. Lane says the diversity of the partners strengthens the program: "Each of us will deliver what we do best, but it will be a complete package that addresses the whole child and gives each more ways to be successful."
Blum is excited to be working with Cleveland's arts community. "When we met with the potential partners, they were very enthusiastic," she says. "Each had a program already in place. They listened to our ideas and shared their ideas."
Lane says PNC has an excellent approach to working with partners. "They gave us the wings to fly," she says. "They started with what we had in place and gave us the support to take it to the next level. That's a bit of a dream."
Music therapist Ed Gallagher leads a Toddler Rock music activity at the Rock Hall.
This article was published in June 2009
