A program designed to explore how art impacts a community’s overall economic vitality will be held on Thursday, July 21, from 9 AM – Noon at the Electric City Trolley Museum, 300 Cliff Street, Scranton.
This forum is being jointly presented by the Lackawanna County Arts & Culture Department and the Scranton Area Community Foundation. This seminar is the second of three, all aimed at exploring the impact the arts have on various segments of our society and its operating environment.
The initial session, entitled Art for Social Change: A Focus on Health & Wellness, was formulated to examine how art and cultural activities can be interjected to help various challenges facing children, youth, veterans, families and other societal sectors.
“Art and culture make a region more vibrant and provide a high quality of life. Scranton and Lackawanna County are witnessing quite a renaissance in the arts & culture sector, which stimulates the economy and creates economic development opportunities,” explained Maureen McGuigan, the County’s Deputy Director for Arts & Culture.
“As a Foundation, one of our major goals is always to inspire collaboration and this forum series will do just that. Art and culture play an important role in economic development, and this session will explore how we can increase the connection between art and the economy, which could have widespread community benefit,” explained Laura Ducceschi, Scranton Area Community Foundation President & CEO.
The Foundation and the Arts & Culture Department decided to organize the roundtable discussions with the intent of bringing together government agencies and foundation leaders along with the business community, nonprofits, educators and civic leaders to foster an understanding of how cultural and creative expression has the means to create deep, lasting and measurable community-wide social change. The goal of the series is to generate new ideas, bring about new actions, and inspire the participants to create visions for growth.
The roundtable discussions are by invitation only and are limited to the first 35 respondents.
The last forum, which will focus on Art and the Environment, will be held on and August 18.
For more information, please contact Ms. McGuigan at 570.963.6590, ext. 102 or [email protected].