2001 Annual Report

Founder and Executive Director's Report

Dear Friends,

"Celebrating Kids, Arts and Community." The second year of the life of the Sitar Center programs contained all of these celebrations!

We celebrate kids at the Sitar Center by creating an environment of warmth and welcoming, safety and joy. We pair them with loving adult mentor-teachers who are there only for them, encouraging them to dream, to try new things and to demonstrate their new skills in art exhibits, music performances, and poetry slams.

How do we celebrate the arts? By recognizing the vital role that the arts play in our lives and by making them available to the children in our neighborhood. The arts, a creative, enriching alternative to destructive behavior, is a necessary ingredient in any child's education, yet one that is sorely missing from the school curriculum. We celebrate the arts not only by making them available, but also by encouraging community participation.

Celebrating community is essential to our mission. We encourage and welcome the commitment of parents, and we bring together a remarkable staff and committed volunteers from our community who teach classes in all artistic disciplines, coach, mentor, and lead our children. We also offer opportunities for community involvement by accepting in-kind donations and sponsoring public performances by local artists.

It is with tremendous gratitude for the successful completion of our first year of programming that this 2001 Annual Report is prepared.

Thank you for your support and generosity.

Sincerely,

Rhonda Buckley
Executive Director

The Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts History

The Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts was founded in 1998 in response to the artistic needs of the residents of the Adams Morgan neighborhood. Adams Morgan is a culturally diverse community, varying greatly in backgrounds, family incomes and lifestyles. Although many of our neighborhood's residents are affluent, the rate for children living in poverty is 35.2% in census tract 38 where the Sitar Center is located. The nearest elementary school to the Center reports 94% of its students receiving free or subsidized lunch, a clear sign of low family income.

Unfortunately, low-income community usually translates into diminished opportunity. The Sitar Center works to change this reality for our community by providing diverse, high-quality arts programs that are accessible and affordable for every resident.

Mission Statement

The Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts is a community arts center located in the multicultural Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. It is primarily focused on programs and activities for at-risk children, youth and their families, but reaches out to all community members through shared experiences in the arts. By providing a safe, structured and nurturing environment for exploring music, dance, drama, writing and visual arts, the Sitar Center serves as a catalyst not only for the imagination, but for increasing the cognitive and life skills of all participating community members.

Partnerships

Partnerships with local and national arts organizations added to the depth and vitality of the Sitar Center. Many others shared their commitment and dedication to children and families by providing artistic and business expertise to the Sitar Center. Volunteer teachers from the Levine School of Music, the Washington Ballet, the Corcoran School of Art, the Young Playwrights' Theater and other arts organizations taught classes and imparted their love of the arts. These partnerships strengthen the Sitar Center as it strives to be a model community arts center that can inspire and guide like-minded programs.

We would like to thank the following foundations, corporations, government agencies, congregations and other organizations that generously funded our programs and operations in the year 2001:

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Howard University
Arcana Foundation
Walter A. Bloedorn Foundation
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
Brimstone Fund
Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
Ed Lee & Jean Campe Foundation, Inc.
Capital Group Companies Charitable Foundation
Church of the Servant Jesus
Clark-Winchcole Foundation
Cocktail Charities
Council of Latino Agencies
DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation
DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities
Donald deLaski & Nancy L. deLaski Foundation
Fannie Mae Foundation
Fintrac, Inc.
Government of the District of Columbia
Harman Family Foundation
Junior League of Washington
Jubilee Church
Kalorama Citizens Association
Kirstein Family Foundation
Gilbert and Jaylee Mead Family Foundation
Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation
Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust
Porter Family Foundation
Rath Family Foundation
Riggs Bank
St. Thomas Parish Outreach Committee
San Miguel Foundation
Target Stores

We also want to thank the many generous individuals too numerous to mention who contributed money, musical instruments, art supplies, and other goods in the year 2001.

Programs

Since our doors opened in January 2000, the Sitar Center has gradually expanded the curriculum to include dance, theater, visual arts and writing in addition to music. We have forged partnerships with professional local arts organizations that strengthen all of our programs.

Music

The largest of the Sitar Center's programs, the Music Program served 60 children and 10 adults. Students were matched with an instrument and a volunteer music teacher. Students studied music theory, formed bands and ensembles, performed in recitals, and throughout the community.

During the summer of 2001, the new percussion ensemble performed at the Adams Morgan Day Festival and the music students issued their first CD, "2001 Collection, " recorded at the Levine School of Music recording studio.

Two of our major priorities in 2001 were to serve more children and increase parent involvement in their children's lives at the Sitar Center. With those goals in mind, we inaugurated our Early Childhood Music Program for children ages 18 months to 5 years, accompanied by their primary caregiver. Our long-term partnership with the National Symphony Orchestra continued and brought NSO chamber ensembles to the Center to perform for the children and engage them in question and answer sessions. The students also visited the Kennedy Center to hear the NSO.

Dance

For the second year, the Sitar Center hosted the Washington Ballet's innovative outreach initiative, Dance DC, a program designed to introduce at-risk children to high quality dance training, while integrating verbal expression, writing and creative problem solving. The 36-week program was offered in two classes, Ballet I for first through third graders and Ballet II, for those students who had completed Ballet I the previous year. Students who showed exceptional aptitude were referred to the The Washington School of Ballet for attendance on scholarship.

Salsa dance classes continued to be offered to Sitar Center teens and parents. These classes were taught by a popular neighborhood dance teacher and were very well attended. The salsa class students also performed at the Adams Morgan Day Festival in the summer of 2001. New to the dance curriculum were two hip hop classes and belly dancing.

Visual Arts

During the fall of 2001, drawing and painting classes were offered. In a partnership with the Corcoran School of Art, 4th, 5th and 6th grade students took art instruction from a professional Corcoran School artist-educator in the CASA program (Corcoran After School Arts). The class met for three hours a week, incorporating art styles and techniques from many cultural traditions, culminating in display of the children's art projects at community art shows.

Our partnership with the Corcoran School of Art, now Artreach, continued in 2001 with classes in puppetry, culminating in a performance of the students' original puppet show; and in visual arts, with the children creating visual responses to the poems written by the poetry students for Lifting as We Climb, our first literary and art magazine. One of our students completed an Art Mentorship Program sponsored by the Corcoran, which provided an ongoing supportive relationship between the student and a working visual artist. A new partnership with the Kreeger Museum provided our students with Art/Music workshops in which they learned the relationship and similarities between music and visual arts.

Drama

Two weekly acting classes were offered in 2001, one taught by a Georgetown Day High School student and the other by a Catholic University student. Two musical theater workshops, taught by early childhood music specialist Sylvia Zwi, were also offered for children in the 1st-3rd and 4th-6th grades. The musical theater students also performed at the Adams Morgan Day Festival in the summer.

A new partnership with the Young Playwrights' Theater enabled several Sitar students between the ages of nine and fourteen to attend playwriting workshops during the 2001 summer and fall terms, and students received scholarships to the Theatre Lab Summer Acting Institute for Kids.

Writing

Franklyn's Coffee House Café again hosted Sitar students' poetry readings on Wednesday evenings in July 2001. The poetry students also contributed pieces to Lifting as We Climb. In partnership with the Corcoran School of Art Artreach program, the Sitar Center inaugurated a Creative Expressions class for nine to twelve year olds. Short story and poetry writing, theater, movement and performance were all offered, and a playwriting component with the Young Playwrights' Theater was also included.

The Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts Board of Directors, 2001

Richard Barnet
Institute for Policy Studies

Rhonda Buckley, interim Treasurer
The Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts

Melissa Dougherty Ruof
Levine School of Music

Heather Perram, Secretary
America On Line

Daniel Boylen
Business Consultant

Grace Hong, President
Washington Hospital Center Foundation

Eluvia Sanchez
Sitar Parent

Josh Gibson
Flexcar

Virginia Hayes Williams (honorary board member)
Executive Office of the Mayor

Julio Guevara, student representative to the Board

Staff

Rhonda M. Buckley, Executive Director
Joe Link, Music Director
Maureen Lallos Dwyer, Director of Development
Michele Elliott, Interim Director of Development
Randi Greenwald, Development Associate
Bronwyn Shiffer, Administrative Assistant