St. Louis Park Friends of the Arts (FotA) is a non-profit community organization dedicated to supporting, promoting, and enhancing the arts in St. Louis Park.  When incorporated in 1995, FoTA received designation from the City Council as the city’s official arts organization.   FoTA’s goals are to:

• Ensure access to the arts for everyone and promote strong community support of the arts by strengthening existing programs and creating new arts opportunities.
• Serve as a liaison between community organizations, schools, Parks and Recreation, and Community Education, and many other groups which help underserved populations.
• Be a resource for community members, artists, and existing programs.
• Provide multi-cultural and multi-generational arts opportunities.

In 2006 the City Council, through its Vision of the St. Louis Park community involvement initiative, officially designated “arts and culture” one of four major focuses for the community’s next decade of development.  FoTA is recognized as the resource for this initiative with its capability in arts programming and event planning, project funding and volunteer management, and artist as well as organizational contacts in St. Louis Park and beyond.

FoTA has provided important levels of support to many community arts initiatives over the past 15 years.  The following is a sample cross-section of the types of events FoTA sponsors:

• “Celebrate the Arts!” was the groups first initiative as an annual city-wide arts festival presented for five years in the late 1990’s.  The festivals included art shows, workshops, demonstrations and performances by musical and performing groups, mostly from St Louis Park, and attended by a diverse cross-section of the community.  
• “Arts in the Park” programs were held summer evenings at a local park for years.  FoTA collaborated with the city to program music and provide art activities.  One activity was the Blue Picnic Table Project, where community members painted designs on blue picnic tables that now dot parks around the city.  
• The High School Auditorium Committee and FoTA held the grand opening of the renovated auditorium November 2001, with performances by several school choirs and ensembles; tap dancing by the Lenox Senior Satin Dolls; a reading of a new book by Tom Hegg; and Minnesota composer Libby Larsen guest conducting her “Overture for the End of a Century.”  The School District organizes year-round arts and cultural programming in the auditorium.  Donors have sponsored over 300 auditorium seats at $50 to $500.
• FoTA held its 2004 Community Art Show at Lutheran Church of the Reformation, in the new gallery space called Habitat for the Arts, the inaugural event in the community outreach partnership. Twenty-five artists exhibited 60 paintings, photographs and three-dimensional pieces. The Minnesota Artist’s Association judged the exhibition. Partnership Resources, a St. Louis Park non-profit providing training and services to developmentally disabled adults, exhibited 25 paintings by 10 artists.

• The St. Louis Park Community Band and FoTA presented A Community Intergenerational Concert at Orchestra Hall in February 2005. Hosts were Tim Sherno, KMSP-TV News Anchor; Mayor Jeff Jacobs; the Superintendent and School Board Chair.  The Community Band, High School Chamber Singers, Susan Lindgren and Park Spanish Immersion 5th and 6th Grade Band all performed.  Over 1,000 St. Louis Park residents and others participated.  Nurturing Our Retired Citizens provided transportation for seniors.
• The Gift of Music Program has placed over 500 instruments in the hands of young musicians financially unable to rent or purchase one to participate in school programs. FoTA board member Jim Rhodes has raised over $20,000 for scholarships, instruments and lessons for students.
• In 2007 FotA organized and funded a youth writing program by the Loft Literary Center that brought together 26 youth ages 13-17 from five schools for writing classes for teenagers at the St. Louis Park Community Library.  That same year, a hands-on arts activity for families was co-led by a local artist and city’s environmental coordinator, bringing together 50 parents and children in 2007 to build an eco-friendly mini-community using recyclable items at the St. Louis Park Recreation Center.  The model community was on display in the lobby of City Hall where it was enjoyed by hundreds of visitors.
• FoTA initiated and serves as strategic partner with the city’s Arts & Culture Grant Program, which has allocated over $75,000 in city and St. Louis Park Community Foundation funds for music, dance, theater, film, and literary arts projects since 2005.  FoTA has worked with over 25 of recipient artists and arts groups to help plan and implement their projects

•     The 2007 community photography project Our Town: Faces and Places, brought together18 diverse St. Louis Park residents to work with a local photographer experienced in community arts to seek out and photograph the cultural landscape of St. Louis Park.  Our Town highlighted what the arts can do for community; create connections between people, encourage new viewpoints, and instill community pride.   Successes of Our Town: Faces and Places included:

1. More than 600 people attended the opening before the exhibition traveled throughout the community, now permanently housed at City Hall.
2. After purchasing the rights to the 3,500 photos, the city published a number of them in the 2007-2008 calendar sent to all 25,000 households, on the city’s website, and in a variety of publications. 
3. The project drew over $2,000 in contributions from St. Louis Park businesses.

• Our Town stretched far beyond FoTA’s initial expectations.  What began as a one-time project is evolving into a grander annual program, creating an annual arts experience for residents and visitors, and a visible artistic product for the community (e.g. mural on city wall).  Our Town will be used as an anchor or kick-off event for a week or series of arts programs and events throughout the community (e.g. art fair/crawl, theater and music productions, etc.). 
• FoTA was instrumental in establishing the successful Hamilton House Art Collective, primarily for adults with disabilities, which includes painting, sculpture, and music in their program. 
• FoTA’s Arts for Life Scholarship Program, allows any resident of St. Louis Park to be involved in creative experiences regardless of their financial resources. Recent scholarships have included senior citizen painting classes, several high school students’ participation in the annual choir trip, and a teenager’s summer experience at the Debbie Allen Dance School in Los Angeles.  Scholarships are funded entirely by private donations and average $4,000 annually.

St. Louis Park has a proud history as a participatory, inclusive community, and as the city’s official Arts Council, Friends of the Arts is guided by this spirit and philosophy as well.   Broad accessibility is a key consideration in every project FoTA undertakes. Over the years FoTA has reached out to establish relationships with St. Louis Park’s limited-English-speaking immigrant community; the Orthodox Jewish community; youth community; active senior community; and busy young family community to serve as participants, audiences, and members.  These efforts are increasing the diversity of FoTA’s population served. 

FoTA increases accessibility by spreading the word about arts happenings through print and electronic media.  FoTA makes sure Arts & Culture Grant Program grantee activities and performances are well-publicized so more community members can participate.  FoTA membership fees are affordable—$10 for seniors and students; $20 for families. FoTA rarely charges full cost for any event or program, and provides transportation for participants when needed

As a first-ring suburb, the population of St. Louis Park has often turned to Minneapolis and elsewhere for arts and cultural life.  In recent years, a much more diverse population is growing in our community.  Within the city’s population of 43,000 there are over 11,000 senior citizens, and large populations of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa.  The availability of lower cost housing gives St. Louis Park a greater range of economic and racial diversity.  Many of these constituencies are not very mobile, and benefit from arts activities centrally located in the community.

In the past years, FoTA’s profile in the community has risen dramatically through creation of the FoTA website and e-newsletter, ArtTalk,  along with regular presence in citywide publications including the Community Education and Parks and Recreation catalogs, the city’s bimonthly newsletter, and our local newspaper weekly Sun Sailor.  FoTA’s website is user-friendly, informative and updated regularly to make registration forms, meeting minutes, and other arts-related information easily accessible.