Green is the Color of Art Education

Baby food jars, 2-liter bottles, peanut butter jars, toilet paper rolls, milk cartons, shoe boxes, and fabric scraps are all items many of us who are parents have been asked to save and donate to schools, summer camps, and neighborhood art centers. Recycling materials really is the foundation of most arts educational programming.

CCM Prep is known for it's wonderful music, dance and theater arts programs. Now they are developing a program supporting the visual arts. Encorps! People Recycling for the Arts will be a store that collects and sells recycled materials to teachers, scout leaders, parents, or anyone interested in re-using objects for art projects.

Like Cincinnati Art Snob, Encorps! is one of a growing number of new local innovative start-ups competing for funds through Cincinnati Innovates. Cincinnati Innovates is an innovation contest that offers cash and in-kind prizes to contestants with a connection to Greater Cincinnati that have transformative innovations. Our prize sponsors, assisted by a team of judges from the venture capital and technology industries, will select the winners of the awards.

While most of these are commercialization awards designed to honor for-profit ventures, the contest does include one community choice award of $2000. As a non-profit, Encorps! sees its best chance for Cincinnati Innovates funding in this $2000 award. This award is determined by the number of votes and views it receives by the last day of the competition, September 1, 2010.

Since the beginning of the Cincinnati Innovates competition, Encorps! has flirted with the top spot and for good reason. It is a wonderful idea that involves the whole community through recycling and arts creativity. There are a number of great ideas brewing throughout Greater Cincinnati. As we approach the new academic year and many of us shopping for school supplies, we begin recognizing how our education system currently relies on supplemental arts programming. Encorps! People Recycling for the Arts provides an opportunity for all of us to be involved in arts education through its engaged recycling program.