Recognizing New Urban Arts

Floor Speech

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, today I honor New Urban Arts of Providence, RI, which has been honored by the White House with the 2009 Coming Up Taller Award, the Nation's highest honor for out-of-school arts and humanities programs. New Urban Arts is a model for what the arts can do in the lives of our urban youth, giving them the opportunity to explore the limitless possibilities of their own imaginations and helping them apply what they discover to goals they set for their futures.

New Urban Arts was founded in 1997 as a collaboration between local high school and college students, with the support of the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University. It has grown from those 14 students in a loft at Grace Church in downtown Providence into an organization that serves over 300 high school students every year.

The New Urban Arts afterschool and summer programs provide these students with the opportunity to work with established local artists who act as both mentors and peers, with the young people creating new works of art that reflect their experiences. We know that for youth who are on their own after school, the hours between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. are a danger zone, a peak time for juvenile crime and experimentation with drugs and alcohol. Not only does New Urban Arts give youth in Providence a place to go, it provides them with a safe space where they can express themselves through many different art mediums and with people who can nurture their talent. This includes members from Rhode Island's acclaimed arts community, which has long understood the need to invest in our state's youth and arts education. And luckily for the people of Rhode Island, the New Urban Arts gallery and exhibition spaces allow all of us to share in the joy of that new talent.

Our investment in the youth of Providence has paid dividends. Three-quarters of the students who participate in the New Urban Arts program are low-income and over half live in neighborhoods where the poverty rate is four times the national rate. Despite these challenges, over 90 percent of the seniors in this group graduate high school and attend college. When I was attorney general of Rhode Island, I saw what too often happened to students who did not know how to set goals for themselves or understand the importance of education--they ended up in the juvenile justice system. New Urban Arts helps students chart a course toward the future by inspiring them to create and introducing them to adults who are invested in them and treat them as equals.

This wonderful model has attracted national attention, including this most recent honor, the 2009 Coming Up Taller Award. This award recognizes afterschool and out-of-school arts and humanities programs for youth in traditionally underserved communities. It honors programs that foster the creative and intellectual development of our Nation's children. The ideals set out by the Coming Up Taller Award are certainly met by New Urban Arts, and I know that they will build on this honor by helping more students.

I would like congratulate all of the students and mentors who make New Urban Arts such a dynamic and innovative program, as well as its executive director, Jason Yoon, and the chairwoman of the New Urban Arts Board of Directors, Myrth York. Their hard work and dedication to the youth of Providence and to the arts will ensure that New Urban Arts continues to help our young people realize their potential into the future, and to serve as model for the rest of the Nation.

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