Creative expression gives us the opportunity to imagine, to dream, and to remember.
When the arts enhance our sense of connection to one another and to our community, we expand our horizons and are moved to feel empathy or take action to help others.
“The arts are essential to thriving communities,” said Laura Rossi, executive director of the Westchester Community Foundation. “Individuals need the arts—and communities as a whole do, too.”
Westchester County’s arts sector generates significant economic activity annually. The arts revitalize local neighborhoods, bring new visitors, drive tourism, attract business, and create jobs.
Westchester Community Foundation’s longstanding support for the arts has spanned countless musical events, film festivals, and performances of folklore for residents of all ages. Grants have underwritten music performances at Jazz Forum Arts in Tarrytown, Downtown Music at Grace in White Plains, film festivals at the Picture House Regional Film Center, and lecture series, concerts, and discussions throughout the county.
Scores of emerging artists, including composers at Copland House, filmmakers at the Jacob Burns Film Center, ceramic artists at Clay Art Center, and actors at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, have benefited from residencies made possible through the generosity of Emily and Harold E. Valentine and Evelyn Gable Clark, who created a permanent fund with us more than 20 years ago.
But there is so much more to do, especially around arts education, which can engage children and transform their academic outcomes. We’ve used flexible, short-term funds so that students in Port Chester can attend arts classes at the Rye Arts Center, and students in Mount Vernon can explore their creativity at the Pelham Arts Center.
As the county’s largest funder of technical assistance for local nonprofits, the Foundation provides capacity-building funding that has resulted in more community arts programs for residents of all ages. Lifetime Arts helped ArtsWestchester and the Wartburg Senior Living Center strengthen and expand creative aging programs. The Support Center for Nonprofit Management helped six arts agencies in the county strengthen their priorities as they emerged from the pandemic.
SAY “YES” TO THE ARTS IN WESTCHESTER
In an age of inflation and budget cuts, community arts programs suffer. The Westchester Community Foundation is working to fill the gap.
Launched in 2017, the Foundation’s Arts and Creative Expression Fund makes grants today while retaining and investing the corpus so that the fund can grow over time. It serves as an enduring, permanent resource, a much-needed safety net, to secure the future of the arts in Westchester—forever.
Contributing to the Arts and Creative Expression Fund lets you say “yes” to a healthy future for the artistic community in Westchester.
DOUBLE YOUR MONEY BY HELPING THE ARTS IN WESTCHESTER
Thanks to a generous anonymous donor, the Westchester Community Foundation will match all contributions to its Arts and Creative Expression Fund 1:1 up to $500,000.
To learn more about this rare opportunity to double your gift to the arts, contact Laura Rossi, executive director, at [email protected], or (914) 948-5166 ext. 3.