VSA Nevada is one key to a better future for all

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count rankings are out, and Nevada rates 48th — behind only Mississippi and New Mexico (www.aecf.org). How do we begin to address the changes needed in education, health and poverty for Nevada’s youth, and what part can arts and culture activities play in reshaping our state?

I have been fortunate during the course of my career to have training at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. During a recent conference, someone mentioned the national VSA network, and I was happy to relate how much good work VSA Nevada — the state’s organization on arts and disability — does for Nevada children and adults.

Last month, I also attended the statewide Special Olympics finals held at the University of Nevada, Reno and witnessed the life-affirming hard work and dedication of the athletes, their families and the volunteers who produced the event.

VSA Nevada and the Special Olympics of Nevada are rooted in the work of two amazing sisters: Jean Kennedy Smith and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. They dedicated their lives to making positive change for some of our most vulnerable citizens.

Can we not take a lesson from them and expend our energy to makes some changes needed for all Nevada kids?

Creating change and making a real difference in the lives of Nevadans living with intellectual, emotional or physical challenges or other special needs, VSA Nevada is a truly remarkable organization. Sierra Arts Foundation and VSA Nevada share a bit of history: VSA Nevada was established in 1986, sharing a corner space of Sierra Arts Foundation’s offices in Reno.

Originally, VSA Nevada festivals were the major focus, with busloads of special-education students participating in daylong arts activities at the Pioneer Center for Performing Arts. In 1989, when the International Winter Special Olympics were held in Reno-Tahoe, VSA Nevada played an integral part, providing hands-on arts activities and performances for the athletes and the public.
Mary Ellen Horan, VSA Nevada’s executive director, said that for the past 27 years, the group has provided arts instruction focusing on adults and children with special needs, in addition to programs for the general population, including work with the 21st Century Learning Center and early childhood educators.

During the 2012-13 school year, VSA Nevada provided quality arts instruction in 61 special-education classrooms at 34 elementary, middle and high schools. Each student receives approximately 15 hours of instruction. This has been at no cost to the school districts, schools, teachers or parents. VSA Nevada now conducts more than 3,000 workshops each year throughout the state for all individuals, provides arts and disability advocacy and cultural access activities. Arts and culture activities make all of us more engaged, fulfilled and able to express our individual gifts.

Martha Graham said, “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.”

I believe the work of VSA Nevada and the Nevada Special Olympics exhibit the very best of this idea — that each of us is responsible to be our most authentic, robust, true and creative self. I invite each of you to find that which you love and practice it, support it, make room for it in your lives and in the lives of those around you.

Making art changes lives and cultures; in Nevada we can encourage that change so that while we recognize the work ahead we can focus on the good which already has rooted here.

This entry was posted in Community, Learning, News. Bookmark the permalink.
[fbcomments]