In 1980, a group of Santa Ynez Valley artists were gutted by the massive budget cuts happening to arts programs in schools across the country. They knew something had to be done, so they founded Arts Outreach, a grassroots organization dedicated to ensuring that children would still have access to meaningful arts education, even when their schools could no longer afford dedicated art teachers.
“They saw this opportunity to create a program that helped local artists and the schools,” said Executive Director Megan Linton.
While we don’t know the names of the program’s founders, something Linton is on a mission to uncover, the program operates on the same foundation that the founders adopted decades ago: a simple love for the arts.