As anyone who attended this year’s Performing Arts Festival knows, Joye in Aiken continues to get bigger and better. And increasingly, the nonprofit organization is achieving national recognition.
On March 27-28, Joye in Aiken Executive Director Janice Jennings was invited to Washington, D.C., to speak to the National Council on the Arts, an 18-member group appointed by the President that advises the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts on its funding decisions. Joye in Aiken has received grants from the NEA for the past three years.
Jennings explained that the invitation to address the Council was a significant honor.
“Joye in Aiken was the only local arts organization asked to address the National Council at this meeting,” she said. “They asked me to speak about what we do, our impact on the community we serve, and how funding by the NEA has been helpful in meeting our goals.”
Jennings said the invitation came directly from the NEA’s Chief of Staff. In addition to addressing the Council during the meeting, she was also able to have dinner with Mary Anne Carter, Acting Chairman of the NEA, and the members and staff of the National Council.
“It’s a pretty high-powered group,” Jennings explained. “The country star Lee Greenwood is a member, as is the Chairman of Sony Pictures. They were all very interested in what we’re doing, and very receptive to the presentation.”
She said at the meeting, which was in a Senate building on Capitol Hill, Acting Chairman Carter gave a detailed address on the importance of the NEA and its grant programs. Jennings followed with her presentation on Joye in Aiken. The meeting ended with an address on legislative initiatives in the arts by a Member of Congress.
Jennings said the Council members seemed to be particularly interested in Joye in Aiken’s extensive Outreach Program, and the organization’s work to bring the arts to poor and isolated schools in Aiken and surrounding counties.
She said they were also interested to hear about efforts to engage the community in shared experiences around the arts, like this year’s New Orleans-Style Jazz Funeral Parade and the Second Baptist Fish Fry.
“I explained that whereas a century ago the nation’s wealthiest families were bringing the world’s most celebrated musicians and dancers to Aiken to perform for their friends and families, now we have the chance to make artists of that caliber available to the whole community,” she said. “I think the Council members were impressed to hear what Juilliard’s faculty and administrators said when they were here: that they consider us a model for the nation, not only for the quality of our productions, but also for the level of our community engagement.”
Jennings said she ended her presentation with a quote from a student at LBC Middle School, who had participated in Joye in Aiken’s weeklong teaching residency there, conducted by the Juilliard-trained Allant Trio.
“I pointed out that so many of the kids we reach in our outreach events are really struggling,” she said. “I’ve never forgotten the student who wrote, heartbreakingly, ‘We needed somebody to come and tell us that they believe in us and that we can do this.’ In everything we do, we try to tell these kids that we believe in them – no matter where they’re from, no matter what their home lives are like, no matter what their other circumstances are.
“That’s the heart of Joye in Aiken – the belief that we can help make their lives better. It was great to be able to tell the Council that now with the NEA’s support, we can tell them that there are others who believe in them, too.”
[Editor’s note: A summa cum laude graduate of Duke University, Janice Jennings has served as a senior advisor on education policy, children’s welfare issues, and cultural affairs to a Member of Congress, a University president and a Governor of South Carolina. She has also served as Executive Director of the Child Advocacy Center of Aiken County, which provides critical services to abused and neglected children. She has directed Joye in Aiken since 2014. For her work in education and arts policy at the state level, she is a recipient of the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor.}
