perform and attend master classes with the jazz greats who appeared at the Chicken Bone Beach jazz series .
In 2003 we were asked by the Camden School District Superintendent to work with kids in an alternative program called CCALP . There had been a riot in the school and these kids were sent to this program . We were told that the youth had behavioral problems , some had learning disabilities , some had truancy issues . But they were all lumped together in this program and most if not all were expected to drop out .
Our Stand up for the Arts program and our team of artists , poetry , theatre , dance , visual art , video , sound , spoken word / music , kept quite a few of those youth from dropping out of school , a few of those students went on to college , the attendance went up 20 %, grades went up , behavioral problems were dramatically decreased , the security guard commented that he no longer recognized these kids because they had become more respectful , and the school counselors reported that students no longer came to them but instead went to the artist first . They wrote a movie script called Camden Nations , they designed a comic book depicting the story line and characters in the movie , produced the music score for the film ; recorded the music and choreographed their dance based on the music , and then documented the entire
process through video . They also created a poetry chat book based on the theme of the movie . Due to this successful effort we were offered funding by the school district to continue our work in 4 other schools in the district . And in 2005 IDEA received funding from the NJ After 3 program to start an arts after-school program at Cream school in Camden . By the time we had 30 employees .
In 2006 we started City Kids Production Company , a project that teaches tv production skills and allowed the participates a chance to produce their first show called “ Get to Know before you Judge ” , which was their way of counteracting the negativity that they encountered about Camden . The project was a partnership with Camden ’ s Channel 19 . These youth were able to visit the 10 show with Lori Wilson at NBC 10 in Philadelphia , She was so impressed that she did a story on the kids which appeared on the 10 show .
In 2008 IDEA was offered the chance to occupy the black box theatre in the Entertainment Center on the Camden Waterfront . Called the IDEA Performing Arts Center . It was the start of the organization serving as a Presenting organization whose role was to support other organizations within the community .
In 2013 we received funding from the Urban Enterprise Zone and again in 2015 from AT & T to start our IDEA Multi Media Technology Training program which trains teens between the ages of 16 to 19 skills in graphic design , video production , sound engineering and mobile app