The San Benito County Arts Council will be commemorating its 10th anniversary with an art-filled evening, Celebrate the Arts! from 6-8 p.m., Wednesday, July 13 at Hacienda de Leal in San Juan Bautista. The public is invited to attend this celebratory event, featuring special guest Dana Gioia, the California State Poet Laureate and former chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts.
The evening includes live music, dinner and dessert with a no-host bar. Tickets may be purchased online at www.celebratethearts10.eventbrite.com or by calling 831-636-2787.
Celebrate the Arts! will be a festive evening for the community to get together to enjoy food and wine, recognize founding members and highlight the Arts Council’s valued community partners, including the Community Foundation for San Benito County, El Teatro Campesino and the San Benito Stage Company, amongst others. Internationally-acclaimed and award-winning poet, Dana Gioia, will welcome guests with live poetry and a brief talk about the value of arts and culture in our world today.
The San Benito County Arts Council was founded in 2006 as a private nonprofit by a group of artists, art supporters and community and business leaders to serve as a local arts agency for San Benito County. With a mission to bring people together through the arts, the Arts Council serves as the official state and local partner of the California Arts Council and has grown from an all-volunteer organization with limited resources to a professional organization with robust programming, paid staff and an arts space in downtown Hollister.
In the last 10 years, the Arts Council has raised more than $840,000 in arts funding for the community and has created dynamic ongoing programs in arts education, exhibiting and presenting and creative-placemaking, as well as unique projects designed to bring arts services to specific target communities, including incarcerated youth and special needs students. The Arts in Education Program, for example, serves more than 6,000 students annually throughout San Benito County with assemblies, art workshops, artists-in-residencies and other arts programs in partnership with the Hollister School District, Aromas San Juan School District, North County Joint Unified, Southside and San Benito County Office of Education.
Most recently, the Arts Council piloted the Dreams Project at the County Juvenile Hall through a grant from the City of Hollister, which consisted of 18 weeks of art classes in dance, poetry and the visual arts designed to engage at-risk youth in the arts. The program will expand in the 2016-17 academic year through a $13,500 grant from the California Arts Council’s JUMPsArts Program for youth in corrections.
For more information or to inquire about tickets, contact the Arts Council at 831-636-2787 or email info@sanbenitoarts.org.
This event is presented by the San Benito County Arts Council and is made possible with the support of the California Arts Council, David & Lucille Packard Foundation, Community Foundation for San Benito County, Monterey Peninsula Foundation, Earthbound Farms, Schipper Design and SafeHouse Web.