Transforming Lives: An Overview Of Arts And Humanities Programs
There is no one cultural discipline that dominates the field. Taken together, the programs report that they spend 24 percent of their time on theater, 18 percent on music, 16 percent on literature, 15 percent on dance, 8 percent on other humanities and 7 percent on the visual arts. The remaining 12 percent is spent on a variety of other activities, such as folk arts and film.
Even though these are not primarily social service programs, they provide an array of support services for children and youth beyond arts and humanities activities. Because of the difficult circumstances of many participants' lives, it is not uncommon for programs to offer conflict resolution sessions, life skills and job training, job and college counseling, tutoring and sometimes even
meals and transportation services.
The Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in addition
to offering an Arts Apprenticeship Training Program in ceramic arts, computer imaging, drawing and photography, also provides college counseling services. This combination may account for the fact that 74 percent to 80
percent of participants in the Program are accepted into college, compared to 20 percent in the surrounding community.
Tutorial programs in math, reading and computers, as well as dance, heritage arts, poetry and vocal arts are available to the children participating in the STARS Program-Success Through Academic and Recreational Support, sponsored by the City of Fort Myers, Florida. When the Program began, the majority of its students had less than a C average, but now 80 percent maintain a C average or better. The city police point to a 28 percent decline in juvenile arrests since the Program was founded in l989.
Some programs charge a modest fee, but scholarships and waivers generally are available for children who cannot afford it. Most materials are provided free-of-charge. Prime Time Family Reading Time, a project of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, gives children's books to families so parents can read them aloud to their children at home. Children on scholarship participating in Project LIFT, The Dance Ring DBA New York Theatre Ballet program, receive free ballet lessons, dance clothes, transportation money and books. Project LIFT also provides school clothes, winter coats and emergency medical care when needed. The Sarasota Ballet of Florida provides instruction, dancewear and transportation to scholarship participants in Dance-The Next Generation.
These cultural programs serve both large populations and small numbers
of youth. Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky, involves 13 youth a year
in a program that uses videography as a way to document Appalachian culture. In contrast, 120 teenagers sing in the Oakland Youth Chorus in California, while 2,000
children participate in dance, creative-writing, music, theater and visual arts classes in recreation centers in Columbus, Ohio's Children of the Future program.
The average number of children served annually
by these programs is 407; the median number, 100. Sixty percent of the programs report annual increases in attendance since they began. 
These programs provide children with a rich range of opportunities to create and to reflect, from 10-minute skits to Shakespeare, rap music to opera and rites of passage ceremonies to ballet. Children in these programs produce custom-designed T-shirts, ceramics and murals. They play saxophones and violins and transform public spaces into places of beauty. The programs facilitate youth's production of videos to help rival gangs understand each other and to help teens communicate with adults. Teen mothers improve their parenting skills using children's literature. Young people research the history of their communities, sometimes using a video camera and sometimes a pen, in order to gain a perspective on the present. The children learn how to become museum docents and what it takes to become a curator.