Arts Bus Inc

The impact of the Arts Bus Project seeks from its work is (1) consistent integration of & improvement in the quality art programming provided to children of Central Vermont; (2) emphasizing public commitment to the life priority of art; (3) affirming the value of the region’s many excellent artists and cultural institutions as EncourageMentors and resources; and (4) connecting art to the heart & hands of generations of children.

Each year, we evaluate and reset our short- and long-term strategic goals to meet the needs of the communities we serve. In 2021, we made over 90 stops, conducted 143 classes in 35 mediums, served 2,425 children directly and indirectly impacted over 50,000 people in the State of Vermont by a single-employee nonprofit with $103,000 in Gross Revenues. This might be a small organization, but we are efficient & mighty. Our 2022 program includes stops at after- & in-school programs, camps and public-access locations with the following goals:

• Provide 100+ opportunities for children to receive quality art-education in a safe environment for NO CHARGE to the family beyond the payments they make for after care, summer camp, or event charges. Achieve over 1,500 direct art education interactions with young blooming artists in a variety of settings, year-round.

• Foster and achieve 10 connections of community participation. This spans from working with volunteers & crafting communities to make kits “ready-for-assembly” to having the kids’ creations make debuts in theatres, on stages, over the radio and in galleries throughout their towns & public facilities.

• Positively influencing, mentoring, and nurturing Central Vermont’s at-risk youth by providing art education and literacy, skills/techniques laddering, progressive development & composition – with the aim to create the spark of joy that leads to voluntary participation, voice, choice, self-reliance, pride in outcomes.

Our Long-Term Goals are (Years 3+):
• Show demonstrable art education, skills/techniques laddering, progressive development and composition in Central Vermont’s youth in routinized stops.

• Provide progressive andragogic and pedagogic learning, evidenced in art product of children over time and quantitative/qualitative data collection methods (interviews, observation, surveys, feedback loops).

• Achieve mission fulfillment through subjective feedback, photos, verbal, and written documentation of empowering joy and authentic self-expression through the arts.

• Consistently deliver 100+ bus stops for the Central Vermont's young artists to explore their creative talents, take home quality supplies & be empowered through access to learning, materials & tools.

• From all of the above, a measurable decrease in at-risk children in Central Vermont with indicators of increased artistic abilities, expression, and outlets. This would also be measured in parental and youth resiliency, social connections, and cognitive, social & emotional competence of children.

The Arts Bus best practices are formed through experience, feedback, research, process- & self-improvement. And, they are aligned with CSSP’s identified Protective & Promotive Factors, as the “Everyday Actions” that build both are what we do!

Protective: Our programs are in safe, friendly spaces with familiar, knowledgeable art-educators & EncourageMentors; provide consistent child development, reliable in all times, including times of need; specifically address social & emotional competence-building through the practice of art and empowerment of authentic self-expression.

Promotive: By providing art/craft lessons, programs, kits & educators, we are intent on mentoring in the arts – written, visual, performance, edible, S.T.E.A.M., textile, mixed-medium – for all children. Each stop has 8-30 children for whom we customize age-appropriate lesson plans, foster creativity, guide to authentic self-expression, and learn from to allow for progressive social, emotional & knowledge development.

Compelling recent research is always instrumental in our program framework, including Univ of New Hampshire’s, 2017 “Understanding Early Childhood Education Needs & Opportunities in the Upper Valley” White Paper, “Working Families’ Access to Early Childhood Education”, Carsey Research Brief #137, CSSP’s research & publications, help-for-helpers workshops, program formation participation & evaluation from stakeholders.

Rolling for 12 years, The Arts Bus is Board-governed with a 1-2 member staff, 8-12 independent art educators & demonstrable success at grant management. Our business model is predicated principally on grant funding, demanding the rigors of delivery of service, accurate accounting & reporting, and financial stewardship. We have both repeat & increasing annual grantors that attest to our success, and the bus was a beneficiary of the 2021’s Summer Matters Grant including measuring up to the task of fiduciary details of Federal/State Agency funding. The Arts Bus uses third party accounting services for all its finances. The Arts Bus was the recepient of the 2021 Lynne von Trapp Award for Exemplary Leadership in a Prevention Program for Children, administered by the Vermont's Childrens Trust Foundation.

The Arts Bus programs are formed, supported & evaluated based upon evidence-based practices because the mission arose from addressing youth’s social-emotional, physical, mental health & academic needs. Each year, our strategic plan is built an ADDIE Logic Model that starts with a mission to “empower children to find joy & authentic self-expression thru the arts” and based on context & conditions observed in the field; assessment of our assets, inputs & resources; creating activities that reflect the subjective needs of the youth, families & towns we serve; determining our Outputs with strategic and tactical goals of #'s of classes, camps, kids, families, retention of our services, and their quality assessments; then modifying our program to repeat, improve and grow.

The most innovative and impactful approach The Arts Bus employs to overcome barriers is offering our services free of charge no matter where we travel. We are deeply invested in continuing to improve our programs themselves with more mediums & art educators in a broader service area, but in all of our years of operations, we’ve found that offering an open door to FREE art enrichment is our most impactful approach.

The other most effective approach we make is to stick to our mission. Because The Arts Bus is seeking to EMPOWER rather than assess a process or product, our effectiveness is based upon a combination of the enrichment process & artwork product with the most important outcome being the enthusiasm we see in the youth and equipping them with an abundance of materials to continue their creative journey. We tailor our programs to engage at each learning level, whether early motor skills with K-2, STEAM projects beginning in 3-4th grade, or highly developed fine-motor, progressive skills teaching to 10-12 year olds with built-in creatives stretch challenges. We plan for resiliency each year by engaging in annual strategic planning & budgeting, partnership collaborations, and working together with the children, families, towns & institutions we serve.

In the midst of 2008, The Arts Bus was an idea formed by a group of Central Vermonters in response to the need for children to have consistent & meaningful exposure to the arts. The group shared a conviction that learning through & living with the arts should not be peripheral, but basic in the educating process, of high quality & wide variety. They agreed that proximity to the arts accelerated healthy development during early childhood & served people through every subsequent stage of life, profoundly affecting human function and fulfillment. The Arts Bus debuted May 8, 2010 at the Fiddlehead Festival in Randolph, VT, and since that day-- with consistent support from grantors, family trusts & foundations, township appropriations & program clients--the bus has directly connected the joy of art to children over 17,100 times!

Now in its second decade of rolling through the green hills of Central Vermont, The Arts Bus is a fixture of quality art education, facilitating children to explore their own innate creativity, irrespective of economic means or geographic proximity to an arts center. We write grants, find sponsors, use creativity, and problem-solve to consistently achieve our mission and deliver fresh annual programming. There is no charge to climb aboard The Arts Bus, and there never will be. By providing a mobile art education service, The Arts Bus is driven to provide a creative resource right where our communities need it most. With the momentum built over the past two years, we’ve successfully charged into new territories – providing afterschool art enrichment in 5 school districts, 10-12 afterschool sites, 7-9 summer camp programs in new locations, delivering 500+ art kits and activities at public events 10-15 times/year.

With increased demand has come higher costs and a pivot point for the bus to shore up its resources & infrastructure, so we are seeking multi-year funding from grantors with whom we have longer-term relationships and new donors. While we have always had the pedal-to-the-metal on funding to match need, our goal is to permanently have expanded capacity & programs in 2023 with two people, one bus, and one year-round fuel-efficient van, plus move our inventory storage to a location adjacent to the bus. We are starting a capital raise for an electric/hybrid van to carry our work into the future plus add to our capacity, and are delighted to already have a positive indication from a substantial grantor to kick-off the funding.

With those resources, it is our plan to be a permanent vehicle for Vermont’s children & young people in year-round, routinized art enrichment programming to empower thousands more creative minds in years to come.