Lauren Fleming and Raye Jones Avery of the Christina Cultural Arts Center When it comes to solutions to inner city challenges, the arts might not seem to be the most obvious choice. But since its establishment in 1945, the Christina Cultural Arts Center Inc. has been at the forefront in facing urban issues—whether those issues involve the center’s original service population of Polish and Swedish immigrants or its current African American core. Since 1969, when its mission was realigned with an emphasis on African American culture to serve the neighborhood’s changing demographics, the CCAC has provided instruction in dance, music, fine arts, and theater. Through the years, the CCAC has developed a special relationship with its Market Street neighborhood and with Wilmington at large, providing arts education that many children otherwise would not have access to or be able to afford. More recently, it has branched into full-scale education with its affiliated charter school, Kuumba Academy, and has added programs to help children and parents deal with changing family structures. But as the surrounding neighborhood changes, the CCAC is again reassessing its demographic and exploring different ways to serve a rapidly diversifying client base that will allow it to stay true to its core mission. More classes are now being targeted at a broader customer base, including adults—particularly the recent influx of middle- and upper-income city residents—as well as children and their parents. The goal is to build a city-wide sense of unity through the arts. Out & About sat down recently with CCAC executive director Raye Jones Avery and ING Direct’s Lauren Fleming, chairwoman of the CCAC board of directors, to discuss the center’s ongoing role and plans for the future. |
What do you see as the center’s current role in Wilmington? Lauren Fleming: I see our goal as offering affordable arts education, training and opportunities for families throughout the Wilmington community as well as throughout New Castle County and throughout Delaware, and making sure that the arts are accessible to families, particularly to children who may not be exposed to it due to either a low-income environment or difficulty having access to it from a location standpoint. We’re right here in the middle of downtown, so we’re in walking distance, we’re very accessible to parents who want to bring children, and we offer opportunities for parents to engage in the programs whether as a participant or just to observe their children be part of the arts. Raye Jones Avery: Within the context of what’s going on in downtown Wilmington, we consider this institution to add to the vibrancy of this business and cultural district for young people and their families. The workforce and our families are one and the same. We want to draw in more people from the downtown workforce and keep them downtown after work and engage them in activities. But we also are a safe place for young people, because we provide shelter and we’re unique—we’re not a recreation facility or Police Athletic League. So a healthy downtown has businesses and retail and corporations, but a nonprofit service provider is an important, essential ingredient to a healthy, vibrant downtown. We’re the people’s place. |
Obviously the demographic has changed since the center was established, and kids in urban environments often don’t choose the best role models. Is the mission now different from the center’s early days? RJA: I don’t think the essence of it has changed, but the challenges of doing so have certainly changed. Sixty-one years ago, when this organization was founded to serve immigrant Swedish and Polish residents, there were many similarities in terms of people trying to fit into the fabric of a new community and new country. And we still have people that are trying to find their way into how they fit into the new Wilmington. There are people that feel disenfranchised at what’s going on in Wilmington. City government has developed some new affordable housing, but in the absence of that, low-income and working-poor people can’t even buy a house in Wilmington. So I think our mission of providing activities and helping to strengthen families is the same as it was 61 years ago, because that’s what they want—they want to keep their families intact and provide support for each other. But the challenges in terms of the changing family structures and the challenges families are confronted by, it makes doing the job and carrying out our mission much more challenging. With the younger people moving into Wilmington, the arts service is even more important now than way back when, because the creative class and the skill sets that employers are looking for require people to be creative and think flexibly and think out of the box in many of these professions. LF: The arts are an excellent way to exercise the mind and to free it and come up with imaginative solutions for problems that plague urban environments or suburban sprawl or worldwide problems that we see. They also bring people together culturally. We have such diversity in the people that come. We have whole families from two-parent households to those with single parents and grandparents. We are able to understand the community and we hear directly from people who are impacted by what is happening in the urban environment. That’s why I believe this organization has taken on such a leadership role in arts advocacy. RJA: One thing, in terms of urban—the definition of the geographic term “urban” is extending beyond Wilmington’s borders, and I think that’s an important point to make. |
That’s true. | RJA: The growth of poverty in the county—we haven’t even started to grapple with that. A lot of people are not even aware of it. I just became aware of that from taking students home. The trend of more professional people moving into Wilmington and the trend of the escalating housing costs and growth of poor and moderate-income households, that whole urban definition. The fact that we have an emphasis on, but not exclusivity regarding, ethnicity, but we really want to make sure those who cannot study privately are able to participate in the arts. |
One of the things that urban planners and people responsible for rebuilding cities have been focusing on is luring that creative class into the urban centers. Has this center seen a boost in support or participation from adults as a result of that effort? RJA: I think it’s starting to happen, but this article will really be helpful in letting people know that we have programming here that they would really enjoy. LF: Even working at ING Direct, talking to colleagues, co-workers, a lot of them are interested in taking a dance lesson or learning about music or being exposed to it, but many of them think they’re going to look in their suburban communities or they have to contact specific kids-oriented-type groups, because you don’t hear about adult arts education for young people or people who work full-time. I think the exposure and the awareness and the fact that there is affordability here—what you get for young people is key because at times you can’t afford to spend tons of money. RJA: And we have world-class artists who come here as guest artists in residence—people come out for them in New York and travel from far away to take classes or special workshops with them. And they can get that right here, but people don’t know that. Back to Lauren’s point about young people and your point about the creative class: We’re starting to offer things for them. We’re offering belly dancing, Jazzercise, workshops where families are participating together. We have a spoken-word series, “A Way with Words,” that combines spoken word as well as music. And we have local artists and regional artists, people coming from Philly and from Delaware. There’s a lot of synergy that happens when you’re able to interact with artists on a regional level |
This area is changing with the condo development along the river and the focus on the Market Street corridor. With the city focusing so much on trying to get new corporate and upper-middle-class residents, is that going to affect your mission? RJA: I don’t think it will change our mission. We’ve been talking about serving the diversity of that population for a number of years now, so I guess it’s safe to say that we believe there’s room at the inn for all. We have flexibility in the way that we deliver our programs, because we can offer them here, but we can also offer them at Justison Landing or other places as part of our outreach. I don’t know what we’d call them, but in the social services sense we’d call them satellite locations. So we’ve been strategically planning around launching satellite initiatives so that we’re staying true to our mission, but we’re also expanding our base of customers and into these new markets. That’s important for us to do. LF: I think another thing to keep in mind is that with all the growth, the employers still need employees, and whether they come from middle-income or lower-income, if they have the skills or can learn the skills and get the training, they’re going to come into Wilmington. Our center provides those opportunities for people to come together, to hear about other jobs and to learn about opportunities within the city. And this community here, downtown, should be an urban community for everyone to come together regardless of your income, regardless of your race or ethnicity. I think Christina is the crux to helping that happen. RJA: That’s true. We’re really a leader in bringing what on the surface may appear to be widely divergent groups together. That’s a healthy city when you don’t have people isolated and not benefitting from all that the city has to offer. So it’s incumbent upon the leadership, from public service people to corporate leaders to informal leaders in neighborhoods, to make certain that the new Wilmington is a Wilmington that does not have barriers. |
In many ways it seems organizations and agencies like this center are leading the way in the rebirth of the city into one that is no longer split down the middle by race, but a bit more of what you think of in terms of a good urban, metropolitan mix, where you have different groups of people interacting on a regular basis. Do you indeed see it as part of your role to foster that? | RJA: We do. As a group of thinkers and collaborators, we really do. And we are preparing young people to participate as citizens of the city and state and who will serve as leaders in the roles that they choose and who have a commitment to public service as well. We don’t just teach art for art’s sake. We have this debate with other colleagues in the arts field. We have a responsibility because of who we serve to help them connect the dots. Self-expression and forums for self-expression are fundamental in human development, but what do you do with it beyond your own self-development? So, yes, our message here is about the arts and creativity and so forth, but our message is also, “If you want to participate in this great city, then you have to have a certain level of education, you have to have a certain decorum and strength of character.” And so we teach about those things in all of our classes. We talk about it even with our young children. |
Do many of the CCAC’s students end up going into the arts once they leave school? | RJA: To be honest with you, the majority of the students here may practice their arts as adults, but the majority of them major in other areas—business, accounting, psychology, communications and graphic design. |
Do you think the CCAC has had significant effect on motivating students to pursue educations in those fields? | RJA: Absolutely. In the culture of this organization, higher education or post-secondary education is stressed, in everything we say and everything we do, formally or informally. So I think we can comfortably acknowledge that we’re planting seeds that are not necessarily being planted in other places. I don’t want to discount families, but there are plenty of families that say, “I really want my kids to go to college, but I know they can’t get there because I can’t afford it.” We just say it’s an expectation that graduation from high school will happen and it will catapult you to other things. Kids that come here get those messages. And if they finish college, when they return to the community, they come back here. |
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