The Art League of Manatee County dba ArtCenter Manatee

Our goal is to make art accessible to all through our exhibits, classes and artisan gift shop.
We offer over 400 visual arts classes every year to over 3,200 adults aged 16 to over 80. Our 40-45 instructors, who are professional artists, have diverse backgrounds and methods of teaching to satisfy the learning styles of our students. Based on evaluations completed after each class, our classes and instructors receive high approval ratings. Repeat attendance and positive feedback are also indicators of class success.
Visual arts education has been proven to encourage creative thinking, increase engagement, relieve stress, boost self-esteem and provide a sense of accomplishment, all of which improve quality of life for our students, their families and our community.
We offer six, 5-wk sessions of our Arts & Healing Program to adults of any age who are experiencing mild to moderate loss issues. Research shows that those suffering from memory loss issues are able to reconnect to themselves and others through participation in the arts, relieving a burden for families and other caregivers and allowing them to more fully participate in their own lives. It serves a growing and underserved population in our community
Lou, a former community leader, was brought to the pilot program by his wife, Betty. Lou would not leave Betty’s side or participate in daily activities. He did not interact with family or friends – he had retreated. After the first 3 sessions, Betty was able to leave Lou for the 2-hour 5-week class sessions. He started talking to the other students and instructors. At home, he began to interact with family. He started smiling and participating in his life again. He has attended every class since and this not only helps Lou, it gives Betty a chance to have lunch with friends, run errands or do whatever she likes for 2 hours a week. She and Lou now attend weekly swim classes together. Stress levels were greatly reduced for both Lou and Betty. Lou had found a place where he felt safe. The Arts & Healing Program is offered free to all participants and fills a growing need to help an underserved population in our community.
We offer 30-40 visual arts classes every year to up to 600 children aged 4 to 15. Our professional instructors and trained aids have diverse backgrounds to satisfy the learning styles of our young students. Based on evaluations completed after each class by parents/guardians, our classes and instructors receive high approval ratings. Repeat attendance in our summer camps year to year and positive feedback are also indicators of class success.
Research shows that children exposed to arts education are more engaged students, increasing overall performance, reducing behavior issues and drop-out rates and building a future generation of workers and leaders who are more creative, out-of-the box thinkers.

Exhibits: Offer exhibits that change monthly in our three galleries and that are free and open to the public. Hold a free opening reception every month where the community can meet the artists and view their work. Offer high-caliber exhibits to expose our community to regional, national and international artists. Offer free exhibit space to a least one emerging artist every year. Offer all three galleries along with marketing, to the Manatee County Schools K_12 students.
Education: Provide an Arts & Healing program for adults with mild dementia that is free to all participants, including all supplies. Provide up to 50 scholarships a year to children in need to our KidsArt summer camps and after school programs. Keep our class fees competitive by using proceeds from our artisan market to reduce class fees by about 20%.
Artisan market: Provide a sales outlet to local and regional artists in our artisan market and online shop, which expands their marketplace and income.
Overall: We are in a capital campaign to build a new facility that will double our space for classes, exhibits and events. This will allow us to triple out Children's education area so we can offer more kids classes and offer space to outside groups such as Just for Girls. We will also have more space for the pottery group, and space for more media such as wood and stone.

We are in a capital campaign to raise funds for expansion of our facility so that we can offer more classes in many media. We are over halfway to our goal and expect to break ground in 2022.
In addition, once our new facility is complete we will raze our current facility and create a community park and sculpture garden that will be open to all allowing both residents and visitors a place to relax and share experiences, bringing art outside our walls and accessible to all. The part will increase walkability to our downtown area and river front park and will allow us to hold small art-related music and exhibits open to the community. This will happen beginning at the end of 2024.
We are currently offering Arts & Healing free for adults with dementia and would like to expand to include illness recovery, such as heart and stroke, and PTSD for adults and children. We will do this by seeking additional funding from individuals, businesses and foundations. We currently receive funding from Manatee Memorial Hospital Foundation, Rotary Foundation and Blick Art Materials.
We currently offer about 35 scholarships to children in need and would like to expand to 50 scholarships.
We would like to offer more scholarships to adults and are seeking funding to do so. We receive scholarship funds from Service Club, Creative Arts Assoc and The Bradenton Arts & Culture.

Our capital campaign is underway and we expect to break ground at the end of 2022 given availability of materials and workers. The project would be completed in 2024
We apply for grants, local and national, to support our programming. And we receive support from community groups as well. Seventy percent of our income is earned and thirty percent is raised, which allows us to support our current programming and future plans.