Northeast News
January 21, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced that last month the Mattie Rhodes Center was one of 919 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant.

The Mattie Rhodes Center was recommended for a $10,000 grant to support their long-running Visual Arts Afterschool Program.

The center has offered its Visual Arts Afterschool Program at the Westside location for over 40 years, providing an after-school cultural arts program to low-income and minority students in Kansas City. The program, which incorporates the National Standards (Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning) of behavioral studies, foreign language, geography, history, life skills, art connections and visual arts, uses culture as a lens through which students of all age levels are exposed to many different forms of visual art.

The program offers an introduction to art for those who have limited or no prior exposure to the arts, and teaches them about Latino and other cultures while utilizing various activities to illustrate their values and traditions. Program activities with culture themes help to develop life-skills, creativity, cultural awareness, and appreciation for the visual arts. Students work closely with trained art instructors to create pieces in multiple disciplines: ceramics, mixed media and fiber craft, which includes painting, drawing, printmaking, fiber art, and sculpture.

This is the first time the Mattie Rhodes Center has been awarded a grant from the NEA. John Fierro, President/CEO of Mattie Rhodes Center, said in a press release the center provides, “hands-on arts education to neighborhood and culturally diverse youth with the objectives to improve academic success, build self-esteem and enhance growth among Kansas City’s most at-risk kids

Art Works grants support the creation of art, public engagement with art, lifelong learning in the arts, and enhancement of the livability of communities through the arts. The NEA received 1,474 eligible applications under the Art Works category, requesting more than $75 million in funding. Of those applications, 919 are recommended for grants for a total of $26.6 million.