Joanna Ireland

Art With a Heart Indianapolis

In Indianapolis, 1 in 4 youth currently are living in poverty, this is an epidemic. Poverty creates many obstacles to academic success, students in this situation need additional help to improve their academic performance. Art With a Heart provides a hands on visual arts experience to educate and inspire at-risk youth. We work in schools, neighborhood centers, and social service providers bringing afterschool, summer camp, kindergarten and Saturday programs. We also have a growing business sourcing part time contract art teachers for schools. Our programs include development of Critical Thinking Skills, postive self expression and incorporate learning elements from non-arts subjects. This arts infused/integrated arts approach has been shown to help struggling students to learn. In 2012-2013 we anticipate serving around 2000 students ranging from those who come from low income families to youth recovering from addiction and teenagers in the juvenile justice system. Our successes range from as simple as showing kids that art can be fun, to inspiring a student to college education, encouraging a high school drop out to finish their GED and recently even helping to save the life of a young man who wanted to attempt suicide. Art is more