Art’s Exciting in Our Universe (AEIOU), a community fine arts program presented by GSM Uplift, serves hundreds of youth year round. Some live in inner city, impoverished crime ridden neighborhoods and attend schools that have low attendance rates and high dropout rates. Arts programs are successful at attracting, engaging and retaining even the toughest kids. These youth, including gang members and previously incarcerated teens are drawn to join arts programs over and over again for the thrill of creative and artistic expression, community recognition for performances, exhibitions or public art works, to learn new job skills and to use the arts to communicate difficult thoughts and emotions. A structured community arts program is needed to keep children safe, to help them succeed in school, to deter involvement in gang related activity and to discourage delinquent behavior. Contemporary, classical and traditional forms of artistic expression are presented at the annual fine arts camp event.
