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ABOUT CCE

VISION

CCE Reinvents Education Through the Arts

MISSION

Creative approaches are infused into classroom curriculum and after school settings, to enhance the teaching of traditional academic subjects - improving each child's learning potential and academic performance, increasing overall enthusiasm about school and shaping more productive, responsible community members that exercise creative problem solving throughout life.

Transformation of communities, institutions and educators is at the heart of CCE as it strives for authentic, sustainable, systemic change.

OVERVIEW

The Center for Creative Education uses the arts to enrich and transform a child’s educational experience.  We use visual, performing and language arts to enhance children’s knowledge of literacy, math and science.  We help bring learning to life! 

Research has shown that Arts Integration improves children’s academic performance, enhances their creative problem solving and increases overall enthusiasm about school.  CCE gives students hands-on, confidence-building experiences to remember.

CCE works with more than 12,500 children a year in after-school and classroom settings.  Many of these children are considered “at-risk of educational failure” and come from low-income neighborhoods all over Palm Beach County.  We reach many of these hard to reach students by merging arts with education.

THE NEW BUILDING

We are pleased to announce that the Center for Creative Education is about to open its new Center! After a long hiatus, we are finishing renovation of our building in the Northwood Village section of West Palm Beach at 425 24th Street.  We’re completing work on the 18,000 sq. ft. former roller rink in three phases.  By the end of April, we will have completed the first phase, which will allow us to move our offices there and provide classrooms, rehearsal space and an art gallery.  The exterior of the building has also been redone and a garden will replace an abandoned gas station at the west end of the site.    

Phase 2 will follow with the addition of more classrooms and meeting space.  An anonymous donor has offered us a matching grant of $150,000 to begin that work. We ask you to help us match her generous offer so that we can finish 50% of the building and move into our new home debt-free.  The Center for Creative Education board will then look at the other half of the building strategically to determine the best way to use the remaining space to further our mission of using art as a teaching tool.

Since our creation in 1994, CCE has been providing arts integrated, after-school programming in schools, churches and community centers.   We will continue to do that outreach, serving children from low income areas all over Palm Beach County.  But our new building will also give us a place to provide in-house programming, to train teachers and artists in arts integrated education and to create special programs for the community that will further the goals of creative learning. We ask your support as we reach this pivotal point in the Center for Creative Education’s growth!

Please join us for the Community Open House the evening of May 31st or call us for a private tour,  (561) 805-9927.

The Center March, 2013

OPERATION NUTS AND BOLTS

'Operation Nuts and Bolts' signifies our focus on establishing and maintaining the basic foundation of CCE. Programming is the reason we exist, and to continue to provide those services we must ensure that we have a strong financial foundation. CCE gets a large portion of its funding from grants, but most grants offer funding only for programming and allow little or nothing toward operations and overhead. Yet these costs are very real! Many private donors also wish to dedicate their donations to programming, which is most appreciated, but we also have a responsibility to support the infrastructure of our operation.

Our Financial Plan requires us to identify additional sources of revenue to support the operation and administration of our organization. Thus, ‘Operation Nuts and Bolts' was launched to raise the necessary funds for annual support and to act on the directive of our financial and strategic plan to build an operative reserve.

The continuation of our work depends upon having solid, financial bedrock and we are asking donors to help us secure our future. We are focusing on building out a well-organized development function with the longer term goal of creation of a foundation to ensure, regardless of the economic climate, that the work of CCE will continue well into the future.

The Board of Directors is committed to the long-term success of CCE and through their work and your contributions, we will, together, have a profound impact on our community.

PLANNING

CCE's Board of Directors is committed to ensuring that the work done by our organization is sustainable well into the future. The Board recently completed a six-month strategic planning process in which we developed a solid, five-year financial plan for CCE. We have engaged with a consultant to assist us in the development of strong financial controls and appropriate reporting to the Board along with a revised strategy concerning the completion of the new building.

We are more committed than ever to ensure that the programming, which is the core of CCE, remains the most important focus of the organization and is not put at risk by carrying more debt than appropriate for a non-profit organization. Our goals this year include the elimination of all long-term debt, ensuring that our operating costs are at, or below, recognized national standards and that we continue to increase the programming to our community.