YOUNGSTOWN Cleveland Browns charity gives $5,000 to YSU violin program
The foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Cleveland Browns.
YOUNGSTOWN --Violins and football players don't seem to be a natural pair, but that is what's happening between the Cleveland Browns and the SMARTS program at Youngstown State University.
The Cleveland Browns Foundation has donated $5,000 to help Students Motivated by the Arts purchase 12 to 15 violins, stands and chairs that will be used to give violin lessons to Youngstown schoolchildren.
"It's great to see football supporting the arts," said Kelly Bancroft, SMARTS coordinator. "It's also great to see some recognition of our program outside of Youngstown."
She said the donation will help develop the Strings Project to introduce inner-city children to string instruments.
Bancroft and Becky Keck, SMARTS director, and a handful of children from the SMARTS program were recognized during pre-game festivities at the Browns pre-season game Aug. 15 in Cleveland Browns Stadium.
SMARTS, created in 1997, is an arts education partnership between YSU's College of Fine and Performing Arts, the College of Education, the Youngstown city schools and the many vital arts organizations in the Youngstown area.
The program seeks to motivate children to succeed in all areas of life by teaching them the discipline and focus that creating art takes.
SMARTS projects include creating an original opera at Martin Luther King Elementary and Hayes Middle schools through the New York Metropolitan Opera Guild's Creating Original Opera teacher training program.
The program also has introduced an educational sculpture project and brought award-winning authors into the schools.
The Cleveland Browns Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Cleveland Browns. Its primary goal is to help meet the needs of disadvantaged youth in the Northeast Ohio area and provide grants to nonprofit agencies that work with at-risk children.