Accessible Arts, Inc.

The mission of Accessible Arts, Inc. is to champion the arts for children with disabilities and advocate access to the arts.

Accessible Arts values children and the arts. Above all, access to the arts for children with disabilities is our core principle.

Advocacy, education and collaboration are essential components in accomplishing our objectives. Our beliefs are encompassed in the concept known as ‘universal design’ that does not disadvantage or stigmatize anyone.

We believe that through the arts, children develop critical thinking skills, take risks in a safe environment and experience successes. The challenge of creating something of value instills hope and self-confidence in children.

From 1997 to 2000, Martin served as the Executive Director for FilmFest Kansas City and the KAN Film Festival. His experience includes managing not-for-profit organizations, fund raising, grant writing and promoting the arts. With an MFA in Acting/Directing from the University of Missouri at Kansas City, he has extensive experience in theatre including the creation and performance of many workshops in Kansas and Missouri schools. Martin has also directed and produced several training video projects.

Kit is responsible for coordinating Accessible Arts' programming for children with disabilities. This includes public presentations, teacher/parent training, and presenting a variety of arts experiences for children with disabilities and their non-disabled peers across the state of Kansas. Kit will also develop programming for the new accessible art studio to be housed in the historic Carriage House located close to our office on the campus of the Kansas State School for the Blind.

Kit has twenty years of experience working with children and adults through music, drama, and visual art. Her credits include: Founder and Artistic Director of the Pocket Theatre, a touring company that offered participatory theatre for children from 1987 to 1993; Program Specialist for Young Audiences of Kansas City; and General Manager for Paul Mesner Puppets. Kit also has experience as a freelance performer, director, and playwright. She has presented numerous presentations at national and international conferences and is well known for her work as an Orff Schulwerk clinician. Her experience working with individuals with disabilities includes teaching music at the North Carolina School for the Deaf and working as a Program Coordinator for Triality, a provider of day habilitation for adults with developmental disabilities. Kit's music degrees are from the North Carolina School of the Arts and the University of Missouri – Kansas City.

Beverly helps behind the scenes with events planning, media communications, public speaking, web site maintenance, data base management, and grant writing. She has Associate in Fine Arts and Bachelor of Music Education degrees. With previous experience as a marketing coordinator, Beverly has done fund raising, public speaking, and has written newsletters for several non-profit organizations. She has raised three children whom she started in their musical training, has worked as a substitute teacher in kindergarten and elementary music, and is a former family hiker and camper.

When asked about her work, Beverly says, "I tell people how impressed I am with the outstanding work being done by a very small staff--AND the staff are the nicest and most competent people I have ever worked with."

Eleanor Craig is a life-long learner and educator whose passion for the Oregon Trail and the 19th Century began in 1972 and has included two Trail treks guiding high school students the full 2000 mile length of the Oregon Trail. Eleanor’s interest, experience, and expertise in experience-based learning and teaching spans thirty-five years. Her early professional training in mathematics education at Webster and Harvard Universities occurred in the 1960s when use of hands-on materials and experience-based problem solving were an essential part of the "New Math." Eleanor was the founding Director of the Webster University Master of Arts in Teaching Program in Interdisciplinary Studies, a program for in-service elementary and junior high teachers which focused on thematic studies uniting the core disciplines, including the arts. The program introduced Kansas City public school teachers to the methods of integrated studies used in the British open classroom and to Montessori methods of curriculum development.

With the support of a Danforth Foundation Fellowship, Eleanor completed doctoral studies at Boston University in Adult Education, conducting participant observation research on the process of adult learning and change in daily-life settings. For six years, Eleanor worked with a group of Kentucky farmers, using her skills in non-formal teaching and learning to help working farmers master the art of community organizing and political lobbying. Returning to Kansas City in 1995, Eleanor joined the staff of Accessible Arts as Executive Assistant, a position that gives full play to her organizational and writing skills. A chance remark to the Superintendent of the Kansas School for the Blind, where Accessible Arts has its offices, re-ignited Eleanor’s Oregon Trail interests...And the rest is a wonderful adventure in history!

Board of Directors Officers
Vickie Tucker, President
Wyandotte Special Education Co-op

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.

To promote arts programming that incorporates participation of children with disabilities.

To educate professionals and families about the benefits of the arts, and the means to ensure access for children with disabilities.

To become nationally recognized as the ultimate authority on training in the arts for children with disabilities.

Accessible Arts Text Website is Bobby Approved!