Embracing Community Arts (ECA)
The Prudential Spirit of Community Award honors students
in grades 5-12 for making meaningful contributions to their
communities through volunteer service. Rebecca was a recipient of this
award in 2019 and knew she wanted to continue on her work for her Gold
Award project. Rebecca discovered that students in her community do
not have access to literature and the arts due to socioeconomic status
and other limiting factors. She also quickly discovered that lack of
access to literature and the arts had been further impeded by the
effects of the pandemic and social distancing measures. Many students
lost access to libraries inside and outside of school as well as their
art classes and dance/theatrical productions, resulting in a decreased
number of student participation in English Language Arts and other
arts education.
Upon further investigation, Rebecca
learned that when opportunities to participate in arts education is
limited, students do not achieve as well on state assessments and lose
creative thinking and problem-solving skills that are associated with
the arts. Rebecca’s project, Embracing Community Arts (ECA), focuses
on making resources for literature, dance lessons, and art supplies
available for students in the community. ECA achieves this by
delivering its art supplies alongside the Biddeford Schools' own food
distribution and delivery network. Rebecca says “I was able to locate
and distribute books and crafts in the low-income areas that needed it
most. I was also able to provide these supplies in a timely manner”
which has allowed for over 740 books and art kits to be distributed to
kids who need them and allowed over 100 students to participate in
virtual dance and art classes.
Rebecca’s project is
sustaining her efforts to bring literature and arts to her community
by having the resources distributed with the monthly free food
distribution at the local kindergarten schools. At the beginning of
her project art classes were not offered to remote learners, but now
her school has embraced her program and is offering art and literature
classes weekly. Additionally, Rebecca made her program and resources
available to remote learners via weekly zoom dance lessons and art
instructions.
One obstacle Rebecca encountered with her
project was measuring the impact of her program. She had planned to
compare Maine Educational Assessments (MEA) scores from the previous
year with this year’s results, however since MEA testing was suspended
she was unable to do so. However, she used her Girl Scout ingenuity
and created a survey for participants and parents. Feedback from
participants has been overwhelmingly positive and parents whose
children participated in ECA, many responded positively, stating that
their students read more and participated in art and dance when it
would not have been possible either due to financial barriers or due
to the pandemic. Parents also indicated that they would like their
children to continue participating in and benefiting from ECA.
When asked about how the current pandemic has affected her
project and efforts, Rebecca said “I believe when we share our passion
with our community we can improve the lives of others when they are
enduring difficult times. I had planned to meet in person with
students in my community, but with the current social distancing
instruction in place, I believe now more than ever the students in my
community need the access to the feeling of connection that the arts
and literature provides.”
Gold Award Girl Scout, Rebecca
26 Jun 2021
