By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Sitka Fine Arts Camp plans to continue and even expand its educational programs, now aided by $120,000 in British grant money, Director Roger Schmidt said at Wednesday’s Chamber of Commerce meeting.
Schmidt said the camp was receiving outside funding as a direct result of the strong local support for the arts in Sitka.
“The first thing they (philanthropies) look at is who’s giving, who cares? What is the commitment from local government, what is the commitment from local citizens? That is why a charitable group from the UK (United Kingdom) is interested in us,” he said.
The benefactor in this case is the Sigrid Rausing Trust, which began supporting SFAC last year.
“They are the third largest philanthropy in the UK,” Schmidt said. “They focus primarily on human rights issues around the world, issues like torture, issues like war refugees. And they recently added to their portfolio the arts, because they feel like the arts are so critical to having humans feel connected, and that it is a human right to have access to the arts.”
The Sigrid Rausing Trust has supported arts programs from South Africa to Poland, and now Alaska.
Schmidt said 945 young people attended the fine arts camp last year, four-fifths of them from Alaska. A third were from Sitka, amounting to one-fifth of the enrollment of the Sitka School District. Overall, Schmidt said, there were students from 27 states and six countries.
Roger Schmidt, executive director of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp and its parent organization Alaska Arts Southeast, talks at the Sitka Chamber of Commerce noon luncheon Wednesday at the Westmark Sitka. (Sentinel Photo)
“Our mission is to serve Alaskan kids, but the very best way we can serve Alaskan kids is to give them the opportunity to meet kids from Miami, from Chicago, from Seattle, from Los Angeles, from Boseman,” Schmidt said.
He added that the large influx of kids to town during the summer also creates visits to town by their parents.
“We’re seeing a lot of tourism now due to our program ... You can’t get a place to stay during the camp final performances,” he said.
Schmidt noted the fine arts camp creates “volunteer tourism,” visitors who want to stay awhile to volunteer their services for the camp.
“We’re seeing people wanting to come to our campus to volunteer and do work, spend six weeks at a time working on our buildings.”
He said such volunteerism matters because when it accepted ownership of the historic Sheldon Jackson College campus, the Sitka Fine Arts Camp inherited millions of dollars worth of backlogged maintenance. The value of the rehabilitation work since the transfer of the campus to SFAC amounts to $1 million per year, he said.
The Sitka Chamber meets again Wednesday, noon at Centennial Hall to hear from Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
