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www.insidehalton.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, November 2, 2017 | 34 Marta Marychuk Reporter mmarychuk@oakvillebeaver.com Artscene "Connected to you r Community" Arts, culture and heritage focus of two new OCF initiatives by Marta Marychuk Oakville Beaver Staff iW M i / / f1 t l if l " · V ll Oakville Community Foundation (OCF) is launching two school-based initiatives that will focus on the arts, culture and heritage as a way to connect youth to the community. The first initiative is called Community Classroom -- a school-based local arts, culture and heritage program. The second is BE-long Oakville -- a community open doors day, which will take place on Saturday, March 17, 2018. The two initiatives were introduced on Wednesday, Oct. 25 at the OCF's Vital Com munity Event held at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts. "Currently there are no formal programs linking our kids to our community," said Michael Whitcombe, chair of the OCF board. "They are going through school without visiting our museums or the Centre for Performing Arts. "They are not learning about the Under ground Railroad history or seeing perfor mances by local arts organizations," Whitcombe added. "We are about to change that." The plan is to include all 46 Oakville el ementary schools, which includes 22,000 students from kindergarten to Grade 8. Children are entertained by Camp ArtHouse as they perform Disney's Jungle Book for Kids. Oakville Community Foundation will launch Community Classroom in 2018 as a pilot project to address the lack of formal connections between local schools and cultural institutions and organizations. | Photo courtesy of ArtHouse Community Classroom will launch in 2018 as a pilot project to address the lack of formal connections between local schools and cul tural institutions and organizations. The foundation has been working closely with the Halton Catholic District School Board, the Halton District School Board, the Town of Oakville's cultural organizations and local arts and culture groups to develop cur riculum-based local arts, culture and heritage programs. Funding from foundation The foundation will be providing funding to support free in-school performances and instruction in the early years and bussing and admissions to local cultural institutions in the latter years of elementary school. The program will run as a pilot for the re mainder of the school year from January to June 2018. The foundation's other new initiative, BE long Oakville, takes place on Saturday, March 17, 2018, which is the last Saturday of March Break. On that day, families will be admitted into cultural and recreational facilities for free, in addition to other activities in the commu nity. Families will be able to enjoy free skates and swims at Town and YMCA recreational facili ties. Cultural programming will also be avail able at the Oakville Galleries and Oakville Museum from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. for families to enj°y The OCF says the initiatives will address some of the key issues facing Oakville, the rate of child poverty and the desire for greater sense of belonging in the Town. The OCF's 2017 report, Belonging in A Community of Contrasts, shares the results of the recent Sense of Belonging survey identify ing that more than one in four residents has a weaker attachment to Oakville; however, those who attend arts, culture and heritage events in our community have four times stronger attachment than those who do not. According to Belonging in A Community of Contrasts, the number of children under 18 years of age living in poverty in Oakville has increased since the last census to 12.4 per cent in 2016 from 10.6 per cent in 2011. "At a time when more of our children are showing up at our publicly-funded schools living below the poverty line, we know that we need to continue to work with community partners to create and fund vital solutions to address equity and housing needs," said Whitcombe. "It also offers us a time to recognize that our families have financial obstacles to enjoy ing local cultural and recreational amenities and reduced capacity for funding school feld trips." Sponsors sought Although OCF is being sponsored by To ronto Pearson, Attridge Transport, Genworth Canada, Union Gas, CN Rail and the Min istry of Education, OCF is looking for addi tional partners to provide greater coverage for programs. Further sponsors and community support would make the pilot projects a per manent part of an Oakville publicly funded elementary education. For more information visit www.theocf.org. S i & f ilm c a cinemas 171 Speers Road (at Kerr) Oakville 905-338-6397 w w w .film .ca facebook.com/filmca @FilmCaCinemas T H O R : R A G N A R O K (P G ) M u RDER o n TH E (P G ) j u s t ic e le a g u e (P G ) w o n d e r (P G ) c o c o (S T C ) o r ie n t e x p r e s s N O V E M B E R 3 rd N o v e m b e r 1 0 th N o v e m b e r 1 7 th N o v e m b e r 1 7 th N O VE M B ER 2 4 th