The Arts Bus is a mobile art studio and makerspace traveling year-round over the hills and across valleys in Vermont, with a mission to empower children to find joy and authentic self-expression through the arts.
What is The Arts Bus story?
The Arts Bus was conceived in 2008 by a group of parents, cultural leaders, and public school principals and teachers from Braintree and Randolph as a response to the continuing need of children to have consistent and meaningful exposure to the arts.
The group members all shared a strong conviction that learning through and living with the arts accelerates healthy development during early childhood and serves people through every subsequent stage of life, profoundly affecting human function, sensitivity and fulfillment.
They also recognized the biggest obstacles to kids’ art enrichment were proximity, access and availability, so having a makerspace that went TO the kids was imperative.
Within a year, a retired bus driver donated his bus to the nonprofit, in honor of his late wife who was an elementary school art teacher.
Then local artists, carpenters, diesel engine technicians and students transformed it into a mobile classroom with tables, benches, instruction area and art supply storage shelves, a “free book” nook and puppet theatre from the clamshell in the back. The bus was painted emerald green and wrapped with a custom-made multi-colored banner of creative cartoon characters.
In May 2010, The Arts Bus officially launched in Braintree, Vermont and began its never-ending journey of full-spectrum, exciting and engaging art exploration. In the time since, the beloved bus has become a “moving fixture” of quality art enrichment in high demand from after-school programs, summer camps, public and alternative schools, daycares, preschools, libraries, and towns/public facilities year-round and statewide!
Each year, the bus aims to make 150+ stops, teach 300+ classes, deliver 4000+ kits and travel to over 20 towns, 9 school districts and 20+ schools, with its only constraints being funding, materials, staff and weather. In doing so, The Arts Bus provides over 1,500 children each year with opportunities to explore their own innate creativity, irrespective of economic means or geographic proximity to an arts center.
What sets The Arts Bus apart?
The Arts Bus is uniquely designed to close the “opportunity gap” that exists between children and quality arts enrichment, a systemic gap created by lack of access, financial means, transportation, timing and equity.
- First, The Arts Bus meets children where they are – at rural and distant schools, afterschool programs, camps, daycares, libraries and public facilities.
- Second, The Arts Bus brings everything in it – teachers, classroom, art supplies, performance area, studio, and a minibus, too!
- Third, it is always free to board the bus regardless of socio-economic status, so neither children nor families pay to participate because funding is arranged through grants, partner hosts & donations.
- Fourth, The Arts Bus can reach across the state for artists in all mediums, so the creative exploration possibilities are as endless as children’s imagination.
In the past 15 years, The Arts Bus has visited over 40 Vermont communities and grown from seasonal to year-round operations, adding staff and another vehicle with plans for further expansion to routine statewide operations.
Years on the road has made it clear that the mission of the nonprofit results in a never-ending journey of empowerment with an everlasting supply of children that both want and need access to quality art enrichment programs in a wide variety of mediums and skill-levels.
How does The Arts Bus achieve its mission?
The Arts Bus currently conducts its mission through 5 Programs:
- Circling Community (public events at libraries, parks, facilities)
- Art from the Start (5 and under)
- Ever After Kids (K-18)
- New RouTEEN (tween-teen)
- Chartered Course (sponsored workshops and class series)
The Ever After Kids Program
Started in 2019, The Arts Bus’s Ever After Kids Program is award-winning and research-supported, specifically built upon two systemic factors:
- There will always be children at-risk in after-care programs, children that need programming and preventative care; and
- Quality arts education will always be sacrificed from in-school budgets.
Ever After Kids reaches children in afterschool and summer camp programs year-round with kits and classes, amounting to up to 35 original art projects with children in these settings.
On the bus, children have access to materials that include a full spectrum of colors, skin tones, gender representation, and inclusivity.
When the bus visited Killington Camp this past summer, children said it was their favorite week at camp and expressed their desire to “live on The Arts Bus.”
Activities and projects are endless, but some favorites include:
- Puppet Factory: building sock puppets, elves, sprites, stuffies & buddies
- S.T.E.A.M. (Science Tech Engineering Art Math) projects that use the power of each combined with creativity, including resins, candle-making, edible arts, art for body and mind, the arts of illusion, and full-body immersive experiences
- Painting Everything Every Way: from acrylic flow to drip drops on canvases, wood forms, mandalas, plastics and foam shapes
- Building: mosaics, clay pots and figures, wood villages and forests, kaleidoscopes
- Music: finding the rhythm and flow with percussion instruments, learning folk music singing and dancing, song recording and production
In its first year, the Ever After Kids program was in 3 school districts and 6 afterschool programs serving 150 kids with in-person classes on a bi-weekly rotational system.
Each year since and in spite of the COVID pandemic, the program has expanded to include more afterschool programs and summer camps with its 2025 goals to include:
- 8-10 school districts
- 8-12 afterschool programs
- 8-10 summer camps
- 1500 kids participating in 3 to 35 art enrichment classes, kits and/or immersive experiences with a full spectrum of mediums, colors, tools and teachers
Through this program in particular, The Arts Bus makes an exponential impact in children’s lives that goes beyond fostering creative growth and skills. Children also develop executive function, motor skills, use of senses and perception. The practice of art is essential in helping children’s growth in social-emotional development, group settings, individuation, sharing and self-expression.
Why is The Arts Bus a Turrell Client?
The Arts Bus is an inspiration by demonstrating how to continuously bring resources to children and families where they are, particularly those at risk of learning loss, lack of opportunity, and instability due to rural location.
The Arts Bus prioritizes social and emotional learning (SEL), emphasizes the importance of creating a safe setting for children to feel both safely vulnerable and empowered by art, and creates an environment for children to experience authentic JOY during the process and with the product.
Though founded in a rural area with geographic and economic challenges back in 2008, the mission of The Arts Bus and the solution it provides are just as impactful and imperative today.
It continues to be extremely difficult to achieve fully funded equitable arts access due to limited public resources, inaccessibility of supplies and educators, and lack of quality programs – and yet, Vermont’s population of children is growing and along with it, their yearning for learning in creative settings.
The Arts Bus is needed now as much as before, so with the Turrell Fund’s support, it is gearing up for growth and expansion to meet the need and shape the future.
The Turrell Fund proudly supports The Arts Bus for making great strides to address children’s arts access in Vermont!
