Dear Friend,
With 2025 coming to an end, I can’t help but feel surprised at how much has been accomplished this year! We’ve had another packed year full of excellent arts classes, and thousands of children who have walked away with newfound skills, confidence, and creativity.
I’m writing to you today to share our progress over the past year – and to let you know that even when the ecosystem at large diminishes opportunities for marginalized children, we still feel a responsibility to persist in our work.
In truth, there is still a hole in the education system in our city when it comes to the arts, putting underserved students at a disadvantage. As of last year, almost 20% of NYC public schools have no licensed art teachers. This disproportionately affects minority and low-income students, and with over 420,000 children in the city living in poverty, it’s easy to see that we are heading towards a future where a great many children will grow up barely experiencing arts.
Arts For All has been hard at work working to bridge this gap. By the end of this year, approximately 5,000 students will receive professional-grade arts education, in-person and virtually, all 100% free of charge. Our work reached partners across every borough: 4 in Queens, 5 in Manhattan, 2 in Brooklyn, 2 in Staten Island, and 2 in the Bronx.
Watching them light up with pride — seeing family members tear up — was a moment none of us will ever forget. It was a powerful reminder of what is possible when scholars are given access to quality arts education.” – Akua-Kissiwaa Adefope, Principal, PS243 Weeksville
Our flagship programs, The Artistic Residency Program and Literacy Through the Arts, accounted for 975 in-person art workshops across 100 residencies, lasting anywhere from a semester to a whole school year. This past year, there was an incredible average of 5 Arts For All workshops per school day led by our diverse roster of 14 Teaching Artists. Here’s an example of a class from this year:
In 2025, at PS19 in Staten Island, bilingual TA Lina Montoya will have taught 40 visual arts classes, studying Monarch butterflies, Cubism, and public art. In a school with many asylum-seeking children learning English, Lina’s expertise brings students out of their shells, like magic–making them feel accepted, and eager to create something beautiful.
Over 3,000 students will engage with our Virtual Classroom this year, which has now grown to include 201 videos and 24 different series (over 80,000 views). We created a new series this year: “Behind the Artist,” which shows off and amplifies one of Arts For All’s greatest strengths – our Teaching Artists! This series allows children to discover different cultures and hear incredible true stories from our TAs.
“It was a joyful and interactive session that supported creativity, teamwork, and fine motor skills, and families left beaming from the experience.” – Alex Gelman, Director of Program Operations, Corlears School
We are grateful for the efforts of the many people who have given their time to Arts For All, including grassroots leaders like Mika Higgins-Woo, who organized her community to raise money for Arts For All through a Walk-A-Thon.
We’ve seen several measures of our success so far: GreatNonprofits has (yet again!) named us as one of the highest-rated organizations on their platform. In School Year 24-25, we saw high levels of growth in Core Values. On average, we recorded students increasing 25% in Self-Expression, 36% in Self-Confidence, 43% in Creativity, 33% in Teamwork, and 40% in Resilience.
Arts For All is continuously adapting to match the needs of the communities we serve – we’re bringing in new teaching artists, new school partners, and fresh lesson plans for this school year. Our partners are eager to see the return of Arts For All’s programs in their classes, especially for the hundreds of English Language Learners who need the help of our bilingual Teaching Artists.
“I like this so much, I don’t even want to stop doing this ever!” – First Grade Student, PS15
None of this would be possible without the ever-growing list of funders who recognize and believe in the value of our work: NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, William H. Talbott Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Better Place Foundation, Linden Arts Fund for Children, Henshel Foundation, the Markel Group, and World Education Services, and our generous individual donors.
The arts are life changing. It is something we can all feel, and it’s something that proves to be true with hard evidence: by engaging with the arts, students are 2x as likely to graduate college, 5x less likely to drop out, and on average score higher on SATs.
All of our work revolves around what some may consider a simple task but, as supporters of the arts know, can be quite complex: bring arts programming to the children who need it the most. Will you join us in this task? Donate to Arts For All and know that you are putting a smile on a child’s face. More importantly, know you are helping them prepare for the world they are soon to inherit.
Sincerely,
Anna Roberts Ostroff
Executive Director
For information on ways to donate to Arts For All, please visit: www.arts-for-all.org/overview/donate/
Arts For All’s Literacy Through the Arts and Artistic Residency Programs (including recent virtual offerings of these programs) are made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
