Des Moines Art Center Receives Community Better Grants from Prairie Meadows

DES MOINES, IOWA (August 2024) – The Des Moines Art Center has received two Community Betterment grants from Prairie Meadows: a $15,000 award for its School Tours Program and a $7,333 award for its Community Art Access Program. “At Prairie Meadows, we are dedicated to transforming the lives of central Iowans. We are proud to support the Des Moines Art Center and many other projects in our community,” said Julie Stewart, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Prairie Meadows.

School Tours Program
The grant for school tours will help support the cost of bussing students to and from the Des Moines Art Center during the 2024-2025 school year, making these visits possible. More than 8,400 K-12 students participate in the tours each year, including every fourth-grade student in the Des Moines, Indianola, Southeast Polk, Waukee, and West Des Moines Public School Districts. The school tours program is the Art Center’s longest running educational program and is an important tool used by teachers to promote visual literacy through creative, critical, and empathetic thinking outside of the conventional classroom. Tours are led by trained docent volunteers who offer content customized for various ages and grade levels. All tours are provided free of charge.

Community Art Access Program
Through its Community Arts Access Program, the Des Moines Art Center provides free art classes to individuals who face social, cultural, economic, and physical barriers to participation. Working with over 30 local non-profit organizations, the Art Center offers approximately 700 workshops to more than 2,300 individuals each year. The Art Center’s Community Access Programming meets an essential community need for the mental and physical well-being provided through arts engagement. For the last 24 years, this program has positively impacted the lives of children and adults by helping them to develop skills for life, such as creative expression, critical thinking, confidence-building, teamwork, and collaboration. The grant for this program helps support the cost of art supplies, adaptive art resources, and teaching artist fees.