Building Bridges at Farmington Valley Arts Center

It's been several years since the Farmington Valley Arts Center in Avon first began collaborating with Hartford-based ConnectiKids, Inc., to provide an arts component to the city organization's after-school tutoring program. Today, the partnership, called "Building Bridges," is stronger than ever, as the two organizations join forces to offer Hartford kids an after-school program that is both personally and academically enriching—integrating the arts with literacy-development and self-esteem-building.

Each week, school buses bring about 60 youngsters from ConnectiKids to the Arts Center in Avon for hands-on arts classes. These students in grades 4-6 live in Hartford's Asylum Hill neighborhood, attend West Middle School and participate in the ConnectiKids after-school program at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church. One afternoon each week, the students have been venturing out of the city to work on art projects that are related thematically to topics they are studying in the after-school tutoring and literacy program.

Educational outreach is one of several missions of the Farmington Valley Arts Center (FVAC). The FVAC provides ConnectiKids with talented instructors and well-equipped classroom facilities, as well as the collaborative development of an arts-integrated curriculum. Participating students get to work with professional teaching artists, and they get to travel outside their neighborhood. The program provides the students with high quality arts education and many materials, such as clay, that are not available at the church. The program is designed to cultivate the children's self-esteem and self-confidence and to give them a positive experience of their own creativity.

The year-round "Building Bridges" partnership between the Farmington Valley Arts Center and ConnectiKids is generously supported by funding from the Roberts Foundation, the Greater Hartford Jaycees, the Patricelli Family Foundation and the United Way.