Lifetime Arts, NYC Creative Aging Initiative. Photo by Seungil Shawn Choi.
The Wyoming Arts Council has received a $20,000 grant from the Wyoming Community Foundation’s McMurry Library Endowment Fund. Through a partnership between the Wyoming Arts Council, the Wyoming State Library, and Lifetime Arts, the grant funds will be used to provide training and coaching to teaching artists and librarians throughout the state where they will learn innovative direct programming for older adults.
“We’re excited to bring librarians and artists together,“ said State Librarian Jamie Markus. “This effort will share our strengths so that all library patrons can benefit from these programs.”
As with the rest of the country, Wyoming has a growing community of elder adults. One effective way to address adverse health effects associated with aging is with intentional arts engagement. This field is referred to as Creative Aging.
“There’s a growing consensus among both healthcare professionals and arts administrators about the positive health outcomes associated with Creative Aging programs for our elders,” said Josh Chrysler, Folklorist and Health & Wellness Specialist at the Wyoming Arts Council.
Lifetime Arts is a national arts service organization that offers a positive, modern, artistic and social lens through which to serve, inspire and engage America’s growing population of older adults. To date, they have launched over 700 community-based programs, serving more than 10,000 older adults and have trained nearly 2,000 teaching artists, librarians, and arts organization and senior service staff members to design, implement, and institutionalize these programs.
The training is tentatively scheduled for late summer 2020. More details will be announced soon. For more information or to learn how to get involved, contact Taylor Craig at the Wyoming Arts Council at taylor.craig@wyo.gov or 307-274-6673.