What started last year as a 10-week after-school course for students at a few of the city's Catholic schools has become a $20,000 program that teaches more than 70 children at all five area Catholic schools to play violin, percussion, woodwinds, and brass.
The program has arrived at a time when some Catholic schools in the diocese have closed and many more have cut their arts budgets. Catholic Partnership Schools - a consortium of St. Anthony, Sacred Heart, St. Joseph Pro-Cathedral, and Holy Name in Camden, and St. Cecilia in Pennsauken - figured out that teaming with area nonprofits would allow students to thrive and produce results that would attract more donors.
"We're having success in how we invest in our children," said Sister Karen Dietrich, executive director of Catholic Partnership Schools. "We cite return on investment."
Prior to Symphony in C's bringing in about a half-dozen professionals to teach and coordinate a youth orchestra in Camden, Sacred Heart music teacher Dawn Bembery would help put on a "sponsor's night" concert featuring students who had honed various artistic talents outside of school. Almost none of the children had ever seen a classical instrument, however.
Opportunities to enjoy what the more affluent world enjoys are limited for the students at Catholic Partnership Schools, 93 percent of whom are from low-income families, said Fran Montgomery, principal of St. Joseph's.
"Anything we can do to open the window to the outside world . . . then they'll have dreams," Montgomery said.
