NOTE FROM
JOHN BRADEMAS, BILL IVEY, AND WILLIAM R. FERRIS

Each year, Coming Up Taller pays tribute to ten outstanding arts and humanities programs for young people. This year's honorees affirm that the greatest treasure of this nation is the creative power of our people.

The Coming Up Taller Awards showcase cultural excellence in after-school, weekend and summer arts and humanities programs for children, especially children who live in family and community circumstances that offer few opportunities for discovery and creative expression.

This year's Coming Up Taller Award winners exemplify what happens when children, creativity, and community are combined in constructive ways. Children raising their voices in hope and joy-creating new visions of themselves, their families and communities through photographs, stories, oral histories, and paintings. Children opening hearts and minds through theater and dance-using imagination to transform vacant lots into beautiful spaces that improve communities. And children gaining a stronger sense of themselves through the study of their history and heritage. Programs like these encourage the best form of self-esteem: pride stemming from imagination, discipline, mastery, and accomplishment.

The Coming Up Taller Awards began in l998 as an initiative of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Honorary Chair of the President's Committee. The National Endowment for the Arts joined this investment in youth programming, and this year, we welcome the participation of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Through Coming Up Taller programs, American historians, writers, librarians, performing and visual artists, museum professionals and media experts are playing a lively and important role in American towns and neighborhoods. These programs give children productive outlets for their energy; a chance to discover their potential through the arts, words, and ideas; an opportunity to develop self-confidence and new skills. Coming Up Taller teaches young people ways to contribute to community and family and to take responsibility for their own futures.

Our joint commitment to salute and support these life-changing activities is reinforced by recent studies that show that children's engagement in arts and humanities programs helps them learn; equips them with a new literacy to communicate in this technical age; teaches them principles of citizenship in our democracy; and instills respect for cultural values and develops their creative abilities.

We look forward to continuing the Coming Up Taller Awards in the years to come. We rejoice in the creativity and resiliency of America's young people and are grateful for the willingness of our artists and scholars to contribute to the future of our children.

JOHN BRADEMAS
CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE ON THE ARTS AND THE HUMMANITIES


BILL IVEY
CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS



WILLIAM R. FERRIS
CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMMANITIES