ArtistYear

Meet Crystal!

Crystal Simon, an actor and dancer, is a teaching-artist serving at Lighthouse Elementary in Queens, NY.

ArtistYear, enabling artists to dedicate a year of service to our country

ArtistYear, a proud new part of the AmeriCorps network, is the first national service program that enables artists to dedicate a year of service to our country.

ArtistYear believes the arts—as vehicles for critical-thinking, empathy, self-discipline, social bonds, and civic engagement—are imperative for a thriving democracy. Our vision is to develop engaged citizen-artists committed to strengthening the fabric of our nation. How? By supporting school districts to provide every underserved student in America with access to arts education via national service.

ArtistYear recruits, trains, and supports artists who seek to harness their unique skills and dedicate themselves as full-time teaching-artists to underserved youth.

ArtistYear, the first national service organization dedicated to the arts, Receives AmeriCorps Funding & Expands Nationally

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“ArtistYear began as an idea among some of the world’s top performing artists — Yo-Yo Ma, Damian Woetzel, Margo Drakos, among others — to marry the power of national service with artistic talent. This big idea is engaging young people through the arts in learning the habits of citizenship — leadership, discipline, empathy and collaborative problem-solving — through a common language and enterprise. To no one’s surprise, ArtistYear has taken off and is expanding in Philadelphia, Colorado, and New York City.”

“We believe that the collaboration of ArtistYear AmeriCorps members with certified arts educators for the delivery of instruction will result not only in growth of the school's programs and arts implementation, but growth of all of the individuals involved. ArtistYear's meticulous approach to matching ArtistYear AmeriCorps members with schools and educators will provide foundations for program growth that can live well beyond the member's year of service.”

“Every day we witness the power of the arts to transform children’s lives and are proud to partner with ArtistYear in extending that experience to more who cannot easily access this experience. The five ArtistYear AmeriCorps members joining us here this fall will bring to this community both the talent and the intention to make children’s lives better through art. We support this for our local families and also for all the communities to come who will benefit as this essential program grows nationally.”

“NYC Service supports the expansion of national service programs in NYC to help address our City’s greatest needs. I want to congratulate ArtistYear and thank them for supporting as well as increasing arts instruction in our schools with their program.”