We are dedicated to enriching the lives of children through the arts.
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Board of Directors / Community Sponsors / Staff
Organizational History
The Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration program began in 1977 as an outreach project of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It was created to develop arts awareness in school children and an arts alliance between educators, their arts counterparts, and the community cultural network.Imagination Celebration Fort Worth, a seed of that program, was created and developed through a partnership between the 80,000 student Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD) and the community cultural network. ICFW is an independent non-profit organization, which has raised in excess of $10,000,000 over the past twenty years to provide arts and cultural experiences for young people in our area. Fort Worth, as a community, has embraced this program through the generous donations of private foundations, corporations, and individuals. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts remains our partner and has selected this program as the national model for community arts and cultural collaborations bestowing ICFW with the Kennedy Center Award for Excellence in 1993. Educators, community leaders, and youth, we take pride in this unique partnership between Imagination Celebration and Fort Worth ISD that utilizes the finest institutions in our community to strengthen teaching and learning.
In some communities the Imagination Celebration program centers around an arts festival for young people. In Fort Worth, ICFW offers a year-long program, which coordinates and partially funds the educational outreach programs for arts and cultural institutions in our area. Programs are created in partnership with more than 50 cultural institutions and the curriculum directors of the FWISD. All programs are co-curricular and intended not only to enrich students learning experiences, but also to be a direct component of daily classroom curriculum and to relate to the basic elements of learning as delineated by the Texas Education Agency and the State Board of Education. The programs are offered at no cost to students or teachers. Last year 90,000 students from kindergarten through university participated in 251,153 opportunities (seats available) in our community concert halls, world-class art museums, cultural institutions, and in schools. In addition to the Fort Worth Independent School District all Tarrant County schools, public, and private, are invited to participate and we have done several outreach programs targeting rural districts in counties west of Fort Worth.
Through the Imagination Celebration partnership we are able to reach large numbers of students with their first exposure to the arts and particularly target students with special needs. All programs are interpreted for the deaf and provided first to students from lower socio-economic levels. Ethnic groups comprise approximately 70% of our audiences. Imagination Celebration Fort Worth has been cited for its work in raising multi-cultural awareness through the arts.
Imagination Celebration is here to serve the community. It is our philosophy that the arts inspire and communicate ideas and give reality to the past and imagined future. The arts aid in the development of critical thinking skills, enhance every discipline of study, and most importantly, should be accessible to everyone. As a not for profit organization, ICFW is dependent on generous gifts and donations from foundations and corporations in order to continue its mission to provide programs that enhance children's education and create a lifetime appreciation for the arts and cultural heritage.
