Community School for the Arts

It has not been until I started my time in the CODA program that I realized the revolutionary power of a program that had been going on in my Presbyterian church in Knoxville, Tennessee for over ten years. When our former pastor came to Knoxville in the later 1980s, one of his first initiatives was to advocate and organize an arts education program in our church. He had previous experience establishing the Community School for the Arts in Charlotte, North Carolina and believed it would work in our downtown church as well.

The mission of the CSA is to provide the highest quality of artistic training to children from all backgrounds. Donors provide scholarships for students who cannot afford their own lessons in instrumental music, voice instruction, visual art (painting, drawing, sculpture), or dance classes. Students then learn from the best professionals in the area, members of the Knoxville symphony, regular singers in the Knoxville Opera company, professional artists in the city. With this level of professionalism, the program goes well beyond "getting kids of the street" and begins to offer genuine opportunity for these children to grow intellectually and creatively.

The CSA is a national organization with schools like the one in Knoxville all over the country. It is not a particularly "faith-based" program but appears to be funded often by people with a religious calling to work for those without many opportunities. Below I have posted one of the success stories of this program, a member of the Knoxville CSA, Shelly Story:

I am so thrilled to announce that Shelly Story, Community School of the Arts graduate of the Class of 1999, will be playing second chair violin tomorrow night in the orchestra for the Grammy Awards!
For those of you who don't know Shelly or the Story family, Shelly, now 27, is the oldest of a family of six children who started at the Community School of the Arts in 1993. All during Shelly's childhood, the family lived in poverty (I remember very distinctly the house on Old Sevierville Hwy. that had only one bathroom), but were able to take weekly lessons, nonetheless, in violin, piano, voice, and visual arts at the Community School of the Arts through full scholarships all through their school years. Shelly, with financial aid from the Community School, attended the North Carolina School of the Arts for her Bachelor of Music degree, went on to continue her studies at Boston Conservatory, and will receive her Masters degree from NCSA next year.
In talking with Shelly's mother, Denise Story, today, she marveled at the fact that this little girl from Lenoir City would not only be playing in the orchestra in Hollywood tomorrow night on live television, but will also "walk the red carpet" and attend the official post-show party with the nominees and winners. "And none of this would have happened," she said, "without the Community School of the Arts and all the people who stand behind it." I hope you all join me as our hearts swell with pride!

With thanks and gracious goodwill,
Jennifer Willard, Executive Director
Community School of the Arts