The strength of the program at Biggs lies in their unrelenting commitment to the power of the arts in turning kids to the positive possibilities in life. Rebecca Siegel, Artist in Residence

By 1996, Covington, Kentucky's James E. Biggs Center for Early Childhood Education Center already was taking bows statewide and nationally for its work in providing 370 "at-risk" 3- and 4-year-old children with free, comprehensive, education. Born of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, the Biggs Center also offered the children's parents a variety of programs to help them become family change agents. One program, the Family Literacy Campaign, was launched to respond to the multiple intelligences of both children and parents. Yet despite the literacy program's success, staff and parents who met in strategic planning sessions in the spring of 1996 decided something was missing: the fine arts.

So, the educators set out to educate themselves, attending a two-week summer "arts camp" of the Kentucky Institute for Arts in Education. The following winter, they wrote the first of several Kentucky Arts Council program and artist-in-residence grants to bring literacy and arts to life for children and parents alike. Mama Yaa, storyteller extraordinaire, came into the classroom and coaxed stories from the children. Parents mounted the stories on a "river of words" that proudly wound its way along the Center's main hallway. A theater artist coached parents and children in a community performance of the stories. A fabric artist assisted parents in making family quilts and worked with children on calendars of their artwork. A potter/ceramist helped children and parents create tile murals based on a favorite children's book. A photographer guided preschoolers in making pinhole cameras, then in using a 35-mm camera. The childrenžs photos of their environments were displayed at a community fine arts gallery in an exhibit entitled "The World through My Eyes."

Through these arts activities, The Biggs Center breathed new life into the local arts community while improving the life and educational outlook of parents and children. The Center also can point to traditional measures of achievement through the Title I component of the Covington Public Schools: On average, the students who attended Biggs at age 3 outscore the nonparticipants by almost 34 percent in nearly every category.