Every child is a gift, strengthen our community, our humanity, and our hope for the future. Every child deserves a safe environment, with responsive, loving care and enriching opportunities that build self-sufficiency and self-worth. Believing it is essential to provide for the fundamental need of all children, Rosie's For All Kids Foundation supports the intellectual, social, and cultural development of disadvantaged children throughout the United States.
Rosie's For All Kids Foundation seeks to develop long-term relationships with donors and grant recipients based on a shared vision that recognizes nonprofit organizations as vital agents in the communities they serve. To help more children throughout the United States, the Foundation is forging partnerships where appropriate, and making the most of every dollar contributed.
In 1997, Rosie O'Donnell established Rosie's For All Kids Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, to fulfill a childhood dream of helping kids in need. Studies have consistently shown that high-quality early learning experiences for children living in poverty develops their language and cognitive skills, improves their educational performance throughout their lives, helps prevent them from committing crimes and provides a high return on investment. Similarly, arts education programs provide children with enriching opportunities that foster their development and improve their language, problem solving, creative thinking and communication skills and impart workforce skills, which increase their productivity and ability to thrive.
Since its inception, the Foundation has brightened the lives of thousands of disadvantaged children. Capital grants have supported the construction and expansion of 27 childcare centers, known as Cutie Patootie Centers in low-income areas across the United States. Program grants have provided hundreds of early education centers with tuition subsidies, equipment, supplies, staff development, small renovations and playgrounds.
The Foundation also supports Rosie's Broadway Kids (RBKids), an arts education organization dedicated to enriching the lives of children through the arts. RBKids serves more than 5,100 students, teachers and their family members at 22 schools in New York City. Eighty percent of students are from low-income families. Using professional teaching artists, RBKids offers classes in dance and music and a professional theater experience for children who might otherwise not have the opportunity. Its goal is to inspire excellence, motivate learning, uplift the human spirit and instill a lifelong appreciation for the arts.
Visit www.forallkids.org
Rosie's Broadway Kids (RBKids) is an arts education organization dedicated to enriching the lives of children through the arts. Using professional teaching artists, Rosie's Broadway Kids offers classes in dance, drama and music and a professional theater experience for children who might otherwise not have the opportunity. Its goal is to inspire excellence, motivate learning, uplift the human spirit, and to instill a lifelong appreciation for the arts.
In New York City, thousands of children live near the "Great White Way" but never have the opportunity or resources to step inside one of the theaters and experience Broadway. On top of that, the city's public schools today rely largely on private funding and outside arts organizations for their arts education and continue to struggle because of a constant shortage of public funding. With this in mind, upon the completion of her television show in 2002, Rosie committed her time and resources to establishing Rosie's Broadway Kids to give public-school students exposure to the richness of the Broadway theater - an experience which was highly significant in her own childhood.
Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lori Klinger, the program began with a pilot project at one school with 30 students and has expanded to become one of the largest arts-in-education programs serving New York City public-school students, and one of the only organizations that provides services at no cost to the student or school.
Its in-school program, PS Broadway, currently reaches over 1,700 fifth graders in 22 schools with instruction in music and dance, and a field trip to see a musical on Broadway. For particularly outstanding graduates of PS Broadway, RBKids developed ACTE II (A Commitment to Excellence), a scholarship program after-school and in the summer which provides more rigorous training in the major disciplines of musical theater: dance, voice, and drama. Students in good standing may remain in the program through high school, and all programs are provided at no cost to the schools or students.
Currently, Rosie's For All Kids Foundation is renovating a building on West 45th Street that will be the new home of Rosie's Broadway Kids, and two new programs are in development: Spotlight on Fitness, which offers physical education curriculum in coordination with the performing arts instruction; and a national program that will bring Broadway to underserved school communities across the nation.
Visit www.rosiesbroadwaykids.org
