Announcing AOK’s 2023-2024 Landis Grant Recipients and the 2023 Winner of the Laurie Pitman Award!
We are delighted to present the recipients of the 2023-2024 Arts for Oakland Kids Landis Grant recipients and the 2023 winner of the Laurie Pitman Award! This year, $70,000 in grants will fund 14 arts education programs serving over 850 TK-12 students across Oakland. We extend our heartfelt gratitude and admiration to the talented, dedicated artists and organizations that reach Oakland’s kids every day with life changing arts education.
Thank you for all that you do to make the world a better place.
Arts education is not “extra.” Arts education is education!
“Arts in schools is a child’s right.
They are not a luxury,
they are a necessity.”
-Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf
Numerous national studies show that consistent participation in the arts has such a powerful impact on social, emotional, and intellectual development that it can significantly narrow or eliminate the achievement gap. Yet 80% of Oakland’s students—98% of whom are students of color—are denied the advantage of an arts education based on their access to generational wealth. Wealth disparities in communities of color are directly tied to institutionalized oppression. Denying students of color the profound advantage of an arts education based on their generational wealth is structural racism.
Access to arts education is a social justice issue, and Arts for Oakland Kids is an Arts Justice Fund.
For 25 years, Arts for Oakland Kids has been working to remedy this injustice by providing grants to arts organizations and independent artists to provide hands-on arts education in Oakland’s financially-oppressed schools, but we can’t do it without you.
Your contributions to Arts for Oakland Kids (AOK) will ensure that Oakland’s students of color receive the exemplary arts education they deserve.
Stay In Touch!
Sign-up here to add yourself to our mailing list and stay up to date with all of AOK’s news and events.