History

Accessible Arts began as the Kansas State Board of Education Arts with the Handicapped Program in 1980. Accessible Arts was incorporated as an independent arts and disabilities organization in 1988 and approved as a Missouri not-for-profit in 1995. Accessible Arts received the 1998 Governor's Arts Award for Outstanding Arts Organization in recognition of our success in including children and youth with disabilities in art experiences.

Accessible Arts' constituency includes children with disabilities and those who care for them in social service programs, schools, mental health facilities, juvenile detention centers and community programs throughout the entire Kansas City metropolitan area and the state of Kansas. For all of our constituents, the arts are integral to realizing every child's potential.

Accessible Arts' innovative and diverse endeavors have crossed cultural, geographic and economic boundaries to touch the lives of thousands of children with disabilities. Accessible Arts often collaborates with other agencies and also acts as a catalyst for collaborative art projects, trainings, demonstrations and exhibitions of work by artists with disabilities or by artists who incorporate disability themes.