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When the Community School of Music and Arts was founded in 1968, no one could imagine how vital it would be on its 40th anniversary.
After a poll tax failed in 2003, arts in local schools seemed to be near extinction. Thankfully for Mountain View and the surrounding cities, CSMA stepped in, and now provides arts and music programs for all local schools. It also helps students in other Bay Area schools, some as far away as San Francisco.
Today, CSMA’s sunlit, 25,000-square-foot Finn Center facility on San Antonio Circle brings in at least 900 students per week for music lessons and art programs.
While the school controls a $4 million budget, its continual expansion means it needs as much money as it can get. The school is nearly finished raising $1 million to match a $1 million donation from donor Steve Finn to renovate an adjacent building purchased last year <0x2014> a .8-acre parcel at 250 San Antonio Road. The school is calling it “the 40th anniversary challenge.”
This year, CSMA is one of seven local nonprofit agencies chosen to be recipients of the
The school paid out $248,000 in financial aid last year, even as it reached out to an astonishing 40,000 students over the same year.
Ultimately, CSMA hopes to increase its financial aid substantially, said the school’s director, Jeffry Walker.
“Support from the community we serve is absolutely essential,” Walker said.
The school’s arts programs routinely give children a sense of self esteem they may not have gotten otherwise. It’s a rare thing in a suburban setting like Mountain View, said Kyle Williams, visual arts coordinator.
“I’m from Illinois,” Williams said. “I could see myself growing up in Mountain View and never being exposed to arts in San Francisco or San Jose.” He added that CSMA’s programs are “really solid,” and that there really isn’t anything else like it in the Bay Area.
The location of CSMA’s new Finn Center, built in 2004, has been quite an asset, Williams said. Since it’s so close to the train station, high school students can travel there from Redwood City for after-school arts programs.
The mix of people at the center is part of its appeal. Along with the various classrooms, it features a world-class concert hall and award-winning architecture.
“Recently we got a wonderful donation from a family that had been exposed to our school music program,” said Evy Schiffman, CSMA’s communications director. The single mother wrote a letter saying that “CSMA opened up an entire world to my son,” Schiffman recalls. The program had clearly been life changing, and the donation “was a stretch for them,” Schiffman said.
The school is celebrating its 40th anniversary on March 29, 2008 at the Sharon Heights Country Club in Menlo Park. See www.arts4all.org for more information.
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