CEPA receives the 2013 NAHYP Award from First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House.

CEPA receives the 2013 NAHYP Award from First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House.

We are very pleased to announce that CEPA Gallery has been selected to receive a 2013 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award.

CEPA Gallery received the award from First Lady Michelle Obama during a White House ceremony on November 22. Here’s the video of the ceremony….

CEPA is both very proud and incredibly humbled to represent all of the children our programs have served, our programmatic partners—most notably our Reclaiming Buffalo partner, Just Buffalo Literary Center, our funders, and the City of Buffalo—in receiving this award.

About the NAHYP Award

First presented in 1998, the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award is the signature program of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), and is presented in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

The National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award is the nation’s highest honor for after school arts and humanities programs. The awards recognize and support outstanding programs that lay new pathways to creativity, expression, and achievement outside of the regular school day. These programs excite and engage a range of students, cultivating imagination, collaboration, discipline and academic success, with demonstrable results. They also provide safe harbors after-school, weekends and evenings for children and youth in some of our country’s most at-risk urban and rural settings.

For more information, visit www.nayhp.org.

About the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities

Created in 1982 by Executive Order, the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) is an advisory committee to the White House on cultural issues. The PCAH works directly with the Administration and the three primary cultural agencies-National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-as well as other federal partners and the private sector, to address policy questions in the arts and humanities, to initiate and support key programs in those disciplines, and to recognize excellence in the field. Its core areas of focus are arts and humanities education, cultural exchange, and community revitalization. Mrs. Michelle Obama, like other first ladies before her, serves as honorary chairman of the committee, which is composed of both private and public members.

For more information, visit www.pcah.gov.

Other Media Covering the NAHYP Award Announcement

About CEPA’s Community Arts Programs

Combining photography, technology, and literary arts, CEPA’s after school programs and community arts programs provide accessible and incredibly powerful opportunities for children to exercise their inherent creativity while exploring themes of self, family and community. By welcoming honest expression in response to project themes that are relevant to their lives, we encourage children to see themselves as agents of change—all while rekindling a pure love for learning.

Children from diverse backgrounds sit side by side to create and discuss their artwork, examine shared experiences and ultimately realize their ability to interpret, to comment on, and to confront the realities they face every day. The outcome is confident, self-aware partners for change who have developed strong voices, empathy for their community, and the sense of personal and civic responsibility necessary to control their lives and affect their futures.

Michelle Obama presents Jose Lagares and CEPA Gallery Education Director Lauren Tent with the 2013 NAHYP Award. (Photo by Nancy J. Parisi)
Michelle Obama presents Jose Lagares and CEPA Gallery Education Director Lauren Tent with the 2013 NAHYP Award. (Photo by Nancy J. Parisi)
Jose Lagares and CEPA Gallery Education Director Lauren Tent after receiving the 2013 NAHYP Award from Michelle Obama. (Photo by Nancy J. Parisi)
Lauren Tent
lauren@cepagallery.org