Outreach

Extending Opportunities

Outreach Program Partners - Over the Years:

  • Auburn Youth & Family Services (10 year program partner - Toddler Classes; Arts After School)
  • Guild of St. Agnes Daycare & Pre-School (Grove Street and Granite Street, Worcester)
  • Elm Park Center for Early Childhood Development (Worcester)
  • Southern Worcester County Collaborative
  • Seven Hills Foundation - Adult Day Health, sites in Worcester, Auburn, West Boylston and Dover.
  • The Worcester Senior Center
  • Martin Luther King Center for Early Childhood Development, Worcester
  • Notre Dame Long Term Care, Worcester - Intergenerational Music & Movement; Student and Faculty Recital Visits
  • Worcester Chapter of the American Guild of Organists & Pakachoag Church (Pedals, Pipes & Pizza)
  • Afternoon Tunes/Fab Fridays - All Saints Church, Worcester

10-11.... Pakachoag Continues its Partnership with Afternoon Tunes

About Afternoon Tunes: Afternoon Tunes is a new All Saints Church initiative, working in partnership with Pakachoag Music School, to provide music education to inner-city Worcester children. Beginning in October, Afternoon Tunes will offer 5 free, private music lessons to children between the ages of 8 and 14 from the neighborhood around All Saints Church in Worcester. The program provides the instruments and all music and supplies. Lessons offered in the fall will include violin, flute, and piano. The goal is to expand to 10 lessons by the winter.

The Afternoon Tunes teachers are all Pakachoag musicians, including advanced high school and college-aged school alums, all volunteers, who will work under the guidance of a professional mentor, Pakachoag faculty member and violinist Sheila Reid. The goal of Afternoon Tunes is to have a long-lasting impact on the lives of Worcester children through music education, providing children with skills that lead to a deeper appreciation of music and which complement future success in school and the workplace.

Did you know? The RAND study "Gifts of the Muse" – commissioned by The Wallace Foundation – "concludes that giving individuals repeated rewarding experiences with the arts over time is a necessary first step before other, more public benefits of the arts can be realized. These other benefits include exposure to new perspectives, sharpened learning skills among young people, expanded capacity for empathy, and stronger social bonds in communities".

Why Outreach at Pakachoag is an integral part of the School's mission

Outreach programs, often grant funded, contribute to the school's ability to reach persons and families of all ages and backgrounds. The rewards that accompany arts-based experiences are numerous and sometimes profound. Nationally based research demonstrates:

  • The enjoyment experienced by young and old alike when engaging in arts activities leads to improved health and well-being.
  • Lessons learned through the arts provide young children new and appropriate outlets for self-expression.
  • Pre-schoolers enter school with skills that transfer to success in areas outside the arts.
  • Young adults learn skills needed for success in the workplace, and will often establish connections through the arts that lead to productive, engaged citizenship.

Pakachoag outreach programs take a number of forms and tend to vary from year to year based upon needs and resources.

Some of the ways the School expands its reach through outreach include:

  • Faculty and student performances at area nursing homes, senior centers or at civic events;
  • Education/enrichment based programs brough off-site, often in partnership with other not-for-profit organizations.
  • Satellite, tuition-based early childhood classes reaching families in rural communities. Currently includes classes in Sturbridge and Sterling.