CAPE to Receive $65,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts Acting Chairman Mary Anne Carter has approved more than $80 million in grants as part of the Arts Endowment’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2019. Included in this announcement is an Art Works grant of $65,000 to Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) for their Collaboration Laboratory program. Art Works is the Arts Endowment’s principal grantmaking program. The agency received 1,592 Art Works applications for this round of grantmaking, and will award 977 grants in this category.

“These awards, reaching every corner of the United States, are a testament to the artistic richness and diversity in our country,” said Mary Anne Carter, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “Organizations such as CAPE are giving people in their community the opportunity to learn, create, and be inspired.”

CAPE’s Executive Director, Amy Rasmussen, responded, “We’re honored to know that the NEA values CAPE’s ongoing, long-term work in Chicago Public Schools. Since 2004, more than 240 public school teachers and artists have completed CAPE’s Collaboration Laboratory program, and in the coming year, the Art Works grant will inspire another 40 teachers and teaching artists to develop new, creative teaching strategies to engage their students through the arts.”

Collaboration Laboratory students at Bateman Elementary creating an improvisational music performance

CAPE’s Collaboration Laboratory is a two-year introductory program that partners professional teaching artists with 20 classroom teachers at 10 Chicago Public Schools. Together, the partners explore and experiment with different ways to help their students learn academic content through visual, performing, and digital arts. By the end of each program cycle, more than 1200 public school students will have new skills for building, navigating, and expressing their knowledge and curiosity across subjects. CAPE’s current Collaboration Laboratory cohort will “graduate” as this 2018-19 school year concludes, and a new cohort of 20 CPS teachers and 20 CAPE teaching artists will begin their Collaboration Laboratory experience with the 2019-2020 school year.

For more information on this National Endowment for the Arts grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news