Mission & History

The After School Arts Program®
Enriching lives through the arts

The After School Arts Program (ASAP) provides opportunities for children to create, collaborate, and express themselves through exposure to and participation in the arts under the guidance of arts professionals.

Founded in April 1999, ASAP’s original goal was to engage local middle school children from Region 12 in arts programs otherwise unavailable to them. ASAP held its first eight workshops in music, dance, and art with 72 students. With success and increased demand for programs, ASAP expanded its geographic reach and extended the range of the children it serves. Reconstructed as a nonprofit organization in 2004, it has produced hundreds of workshops and events, touching the lives of tens of thousands of children and adults from 86 towns across Connecticut.

In addition to ASAP’s general workshops, we established the Inter-district Project (IDP) in 2005. The IDP was created as a way to bring kids together from diverse backgrounds to explore the arts through collaborative projects. Over the years, children from urban and rural areas of CT have collaborated in a variety of projects to create unique poetry, photography, murals, dance, music, and theatre.

In the 2011-2012 school year, ASAP provided over $50,000 in financial aid and scholarships; we never turn any child away. Because tuition fees for most ASAP courses are significantly less than actual program costs, and because financial aid is given to any child who needs it in order to participate, ASAP depends heavily on fund-raising events as well as support from foundations and individual donors in response to its annual appeals and in the form of special gifts. It also receives continuing financial support from Region 12, which enables Region 12 students to attend programs at significantly reduced rates. Without such help, ASAP could not mount its present programs.