NOTE FROM:

Henry Moran
Executive Director President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities

Robert S. Martin
Director Institute of Museum and Library Services

Dana Gioia
Chairman National Endowment for the Arts

Bruce M. Cole
Chairman National Endowment for the Humanities

We are proud to join with First Lady Laura Bush in honoring the 2004 Coming Up Taller awardees. We celebrate this year's Coming Up Taller winners, who exemplify, in their excellence and diversity, the power of the arts and the humanities to inspire young people and to equip them with essential tools for a creative and productive life.

Coming Up Taller is a national initiative that recognizes and supports outstanding out-of-school and after-school arts and humanities programs for young people. It is a project of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, in partnership with three national cultural agencies: the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. We are grateful to our many corporate, foundation, and individual partners, acknowledged in this booklet, who help make our program possible and to the public and private funders who fuel these learning opportunities in communities across the country.

As sustaining partners in the Coming Up Taller program, we are happy to report that this year's winners and semifinalists prevailed in a juried competition that becomes more challenging every year. As models of excellence proliferate, and as more is known about the value of the arts and humanities in learning, the programs across the country improve in both content and delivery. Thus, the judges in 2004 found it even more difficult to select this year's winners. This is a good thing. It means that the programs that serve our children and young adults are continually expanding their scope and impact.

Additional good news is that the Coming Up Taller program itself has expanded in both scope and impact over the past several years. We are now supporting additional awardees in the United States and have been adding awardees from Mexico, subsidized by the cultural sector in that country. It is wonderful to see the young representatives of each program meet and get to know one another in Washington, DC, each year.

This past August, we convened the first Leadership Enhancement Conference for Coming Up Taller awardees and semifinalists. Spirited leaders from every region of the country came together in Pittsburgh, PA, to share experiences and learn from each other. Guidance in organizational capacity building and development enhanced their communication skills while expanding their resources.

The conference was hosted by William Strickland, Jr., a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and founder and CEO of the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, a winner in the first Coming Up Taller competition. In a beautiful, well-ordered, spacious building, graced with fountains and orchids from the educational center's greenhouses, Mr. Strickland has created an inspirational learning space for young people, who typically come from underserved neighborhoods, to learn ceramics, Web design, culinary arts, music recording, chemistry, and horti-culture. The Guild, with its impressive staff of teachers and mentors and its excellent facilities and curriculum, not only reaches out to young people at an important moment in their lives, but also prepares them for college and the workplace. Even more important, Mr. Strickland says, the center introduces young people to what life can be in all of its richness. "The arts and humanities," he concludes, "are a bridge to walk across to a new life."

We celebrate the 2004 awardees, whose wonderful accomplishments are described and pictured in this booklet, and invite you to join with us in honoring these vital bridges to the future.