The second annual Celebration For The Arts, a weekend long festival at the Santa Monica Pier, will be held on Saturday and Sunday, April 9 and 10.
The highlights of the celebration will be performances and presentations by student artists in several media, and a special appearance by Venice.
The purpose of the celebration is twofold: to showcase the work students in Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District schools are doing in the arts and to raise money for arts programs in the schools.
The inaugural event last year raised over $100,000 for arts education in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and included performances by Jackson Browne and Venice.
On both Saturday and Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., there will be performances by music, theater and dance students, displays of student artworks, and arts-related workshops. Food will be provided by local restaurants.
The celebrarion is a joint venture of For the Arts and the Education Foundation.
For The Arts, the Campaign for the Education Foundation of Santa Monica-Malibu, is a community-wide effort to raise a $15 million endowment to ensure that every student in the Santa Monica-Malibu public schools, beginning in the earliest grades, receives a broad introduction to the arts: music, visual arts, dance and drama. For The Arts was founded by a group of local parents and has become a community-wide effort to raise awareness about the crisis that faces the nation’s public school children.
The Education Foundation of Santa Monica-Malibu, established in 1982, is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, supporting and enhancing a comprehensive range of programs within the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. The Ed Foundation’s mission is “to raise funds in support of literacy, the arts, science, technology, and innovative enhancements to the existing curriculum.” The Foundation’s goal is to ensure an equitable, exciting, first rate education for the children in the district, with the support of a community committed to the future of its citizens.