Chicago, its places and things and ideas.
It's the past and the present and the future standing side by side.
Chicago, its people living up, living out and living in.
To many who live in the city, Chicago is only a street, a building.
This is the only world they know.
The opportunities to know more are few.
They were few.
Thirteen years ago, an idea was born in Chicago.
And at this school, it was first tried.
The idea? If children aren't working up to their potential, if they are not stimulated, let's expand their horizons.
Let's excite them.
Twice each month, fifth and sixth graders, sixty of them, poured through this door and boarded buses to one of the city's cultural events.
To an art exhibit, to a play, a concert.
They knew what they were going to see.
They were prepared.
And when they returned, they talked about what they had seen and experienced.
By year end, the results were measured.
Classroom attendance, up.
Interest, up.
IQ scores, up.
Not only in the fifth and sixth grades, but throughout the whole school.
The following year, nine schools were sending their students to events in the city.
And the next year, the number of schools increased to sixteen.
Through federal recognition and money, the program grew.
Artists came into the school to help open the doors to a world of adventure and experience.
We will laugh when you laugh, cry when you cry, eat when you're hungry, drink when you're dry.
We will laugh when you laugh, cry when you cry, eat when you're hungry, drink when you're dry.
We will laugh when you laugh, cry when you cry, eat when you're dry.
Hungry, eat, plenty.
These skilled professionals, teaching as they entertained, brought with them, demonstrated the contributions of the many races and cultures that make up America.
This is the symbol we use for the what? The one you find in the street and on the playground, right? The teacher, who at first only prepared her class for the artist, and afterward talked about the program, now received materials and instruction that qualified him to open more doors for the student.
It was the student who now performed.
Sounds of our neighborhood.
A new kind of music.
The sounds of the neighborhood.
To touch, to feel, to know the awakening of another sense.
Yeah, that's George moving too.
The body, and another exciting discovery of how we move.
This is okay? This is me? Yeah.
If a carrot is only that large, can we cut one to scale, but large enough to climb inside? Yeah, I'm going in now.
Wow.
Wait, when he comes in, I'll run.
Right here, get that off.
Okay, next one.
Everything is possible.
The writing of poetry, and the understanding and appreciation of the words of others.
Red is so wonderful.
Blue is a color, but navy blue is different.
It's the moon's glow on a cloudy night.
It's navy blue alone, and no one can change it.
Not 100 men or one alone.
Children began seeing as they never saw before, through the lens of a television camera.
Oh, it's shooting.
Editing motion picture film into a logical sequence of events.
Events staged in their neighborhood, on their street, in front of their house.
And another door opens.
Door after door opens.
The child stands at the threshold of an immense gate.
A gateway.
An urban gateway.
This is the program that exists today.
The program that began with 60 children in one school is comprehensively at work in 50 schools.
For nearly 45 ,000 school -aged children from kindergarten through eighth grade.
Schools in six counties pay for and receive portions of the urban gateways program.
Because they recognize you don't have to be poor to be culturally deprived.
In Park Forest, Illinois, School District 163 is receiving the urban gateways program under a grant from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Urban gateways.
This not -for -profit agency and its program have achieved national and international recognition.
30 cities in the United States have or are contemplating a similar program.
And inquiries have been received from Canada and places as distant as Australia.
Urban gateways.
It's one sporadic teacher training refined over a period of years is now offered at both Luke College and Circle Campus of the University of Illinois.
College or academic credit is given for these courses at both the undergrad and graduate levels.
Today's urban gateways activities involve parents.
Parents want to keep up with their children.
Many attend teacher workshops, act as chaperones, as volunteers, as members of a parent's advisory council to develop new programs, fill new needs.
Urban gateways.
Today it is far more than students attending the city's cultural events going behind the scenes to meet and learn from first -hand contact with performers.
Urban gateways is 250 students in a choral program and 60 of the very best in the Chicago Children's Choir.
And for the 60 very special children who exhibit the most artistic talent, there is urban gateways talent development program.
Whatever their needs, an instrument, private lessons, or clothes to wear, this talent must be nurtured.
It has already produced two scholarship recipients at Juilliard, four dance scholarship winners at Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Talent development.
What do these urban gateways programs cost? Surprisingly little.
This inner city school has no urban gateway program at all.
It should.
It could.
Its enrollment of 1 ,000 could have 12 in -school assembly programs, receive urban gateways 50 % subsidy to attend the Chicago matinee series of youth concerts, transportation subsidies to out -of -school events, receive all preparatory and follow -up materials for $4 ,000.
That's $4 per child for a school year.
For its current year, urban gateways has a budget requirement of $663 ,907 for all of its existing programs.
Government grants will provide slightly more than half that budget, leaving a requirement of less than $300 ,000.
Foundations, social, civic, and religious groups will provide an additional 10 % of urban gateways dollar needs.
From the sale of its programs to school systems throughout the six counties of Illinois, urban gateways has an income of over $89 ,000.
This year's program needs less than $150 ,000, and that leaves it to you.
We trust that you, as an individual, will help urban gateways with a tax -deductible contribution toward a target of $33 ,000.
And you, the corporation, we hope, will help us reach our goal of $110 ,000.
You already know what we do and how we do it.
Our end product is children who will know the strengths of other cultures, the richness of their own, who will lose their fear and mistrust of people of other races, and who will acquire essential skills.
Who will develop a personal awareness of themselves and their unique abilities.
That's Urban Gateways.
Won't you please help us? Thank you.
