Kennedy Heights Arts Center
Human Values Festival This Weekend
Looking for an opportunity to inspire your children to do good or to meet others who are focused on the good in this world? This Sunday, April 29, the Institute of Sathya Sai Education will be hosting a free community and family-centric Festival dedicated to the practice of five core human values inherent in everyone – Love, Truth, Right Action, Peace and Non-Violence -and to the expansion of love and service in the community.
Dr. Karthik Raghavan, a member of the Event Coordinator Committee, told me, “Our purpose for organizing the Festival is as an explicit celebration of human values that is inherent in all. We want to create a gathering of like minded folks who are sharing their efforts to improve the community towards the better.”
The Festival includes:
An art and creative writing competition. Local students in grades K through 12 have submitted work showcasing their interpretation of the human values.
An art workshop. At around 3:30 pm, Radha Lakshmi with the Kennedy Heights Celebrate heARTt will lead attendees in this thought provoking exercise using a combination of stencils and colored sand and rice flour.
Entertainment. Internationally acclaimed Nimo, known as Empty Hands Music, will perform a very special concert from 5 to 7 pm aimed at spreading the seeds of goodness in the world. According to his website, from an Ivy League education to Wall street to fame and fortune as a MTV Rap star, at some point along Nimo’s journey he realized that we was walking a path of suffering and that the only path to light was through selfless service to others and his own internal purification. For the past 7 and half years Nimo has been serving and working with the underprivileged communities in the Gandhi Ashram in India. Most recently Nimo has reconnected to his roots of music and is offering this gift of love, peace and oneness through his songs: an offering he calls “Empty Hands Music”. www.emptyhandsmusic.org
Community Awards. Nimo will introduce and help recognize Individuals for their service to the community.
About the Institute of Sathya Sai Eduation.
The Institute of Sathya Sai Education is a non-profit character-education institution. ISSE is an organization that is part of bigger org called Sathya Sai International Org or ISSE. The main goal of ISSE is to promote human values through education. They have developed curriculum that they share with teachers to help them incorporate HV into their lesson plans. A good example is taking about George Washington and American revolution. To weave in the story about him and chopping of cherry tree to illustrate the need for telling the truth. It is more of emphasis to things like these that allows children not only learn dates and events in history but look at the human side of the people involved.
Human Values Festival
When: Sunday, April 29 from 3 to 7 pm
Where: Kennedy Heights Arts Center
(6620 Montgomery Road)
Cost: Free
Greater Cincinnati Foundation Has Far Reaching Impact
How fortun
ate we are in our region to have an organization like the Greater Cincinnati Foundation. With assets of more than $540 million, its impact is so far reaching as to touch lives in probably just about every neighborhood within its eight county region of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Just in this year alone, more than $88 million has been awarded from the Foundation. That is A LOT of good!
Its grants and leadership are provided in six key areas: arts and culture, community and economic development, education, the environment, health, and human services.
These are some highlights from the Foundation’s fourth quarter.
The Kennedy Heights Arts Center was awarded $35,000 in Cultural Vibrancy. This will support expenses at its new Annex space, including a full-time events and marketing manager.
To foster Economic Opportunity, the Ohio Justice and Policy Center received $80,000 for its Second Chance Legal Clinics, which provides employer education and expungements for victims of human t
rafficking.
To support Educational Success, the Literacy Network of Greater Cincinnati received $50,000. The grant will support adult and children’s literacy services programs that provide literacy assistance.
Environmental Stewardship was supported with a two year grant of $100,000 to the Land Conservancy of Hamilton County. It will support the merger of three land conservancies working to significantly expand permanent land preservation in Hamilton, Clermont and Warren counties.
The Center for Respite Care was awarded $50,000 in the area of Health & Wellness. Funds will be used for a 24-our medical recovery service for single, homeless adults in Hamilton County and Northern Kentucky. Clients will receive support when they are discharged from hospital settings.
MORTAR received $35,000 in the area of Job Creation. MORTAR offers entrepreneurial training to individuals who could not normally afford this support. The program was created to address the displacement of low-income families in Over-the-Rhine.
To encourage Strong Communities, the Cincinnati Community ToolBank was awarded $30,000 to support the tool lending services it offers nonprofits. Since 2012, it has saved nonprofits $1.3 million.
#GoodThingsCincy
Mural Helps Celebrate Amberley Village 75th Anniversary
To celebrate Amberley Village’s 75th anniversary, a committee of Amberley residents collaborated with the nonprofit Kennedy Heights Arts Center to create a very 
special piece of art that would serve as a permanent welcome to visitors and residents.
The very talented artist, Cedric Michael Cox (one of our CINspirational People), was selected to work with a committee to design the outdoor mural that will be displayed on a wall adjacent to Amberley’s Municipal Building.
“When I met with the committee members and toured the historic parks and pastures of the neighborhood, it was clear to me that the people of Amberley enjoyed its natural untouched beauty. The homes and public buildings in Amberley don’t live on top of nature they live within nature. The natural rural environment is the core to its everlasting charm,” Cedric wrote in his blog.
In July, he and Amberley residents brought the concepts to life. Many hours were spent collaborating, painting and getting to know others in their community. To see more photos of them working on it, please click here to visit Cedric’s blog.
“I wanted this mural to celebrate the community’s respect for wildlife and nature. Whoever looks upon this wall should feel invited to be a part of this 
place where man and wildlife live in harmonious respect,” wrote Cedric.
You are invited!
The dedication for the mural will be
Sunday, August 16, from 6 to 6:30 p.m.
at 7149 Ridge Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45237
Kennedy Heights Arts Center Has Student Art Show
Each spring, the galleries at Kennedy Heights Arts Center highlight the work of our area’s most up-and-coming artists. The annual Student Art Show features artwork by more than 80 youth and adult students who take class at the arts center or in one of its many outreach programs in local schools.
Paintings, drawings, photography, mixed-media collage and textured wall sculptures grace the walls of the historic building’s exhibition space. The works demonstrate the great imagination and talent of these diverse students, as well as the creativity of their skilled, professional art instructors. Kennedy Heights Arts Center offers a wide range of classes and camps for youth ages 5+ and adults in drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, print making and more – allowing people of all ages and backgrounds to express themselves creatively, hone their skills, 
or learn a brand new art form. The center’s sliding-scale fee policy ensures affordability for all people regardless of income. Outreach programs in public schools and social service organizations provide enrichment opportunities for many under-served children.
Students of all ages look forward to this exhibit every year so they can show off their hard work – and its a great chance for the public to view all the imaginative and inspiring work students have been making, and to discover what others have been learning. Participating schools include Academy of World Languages, Nativity School, The New School Montessori, Pleasant Ridge Montessori, Silverton Paideia Academy, and Woodford Paideia Academy.
The show runs through Saturday, May 23rd. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Friday, 10am to 5pm and Saturday, 11am to 4pm. The Kennedy Heights Arts Center is located at 6546 Montgomery Rd; 45213.
Ground Breaking For Cultural Campus Planned In Kennedy Heights
The racially and economically diverse Kennedy Heights neighborhood characterized by vacant buildings and payday lenders is about to undergo one of the region’s most dramatic revitalizations. After nearly five years of planning, the Kennedy Heights Arts Center, along with partners Kennedy Heights Montessori Center and Kennedy Heights Development Corporation, will break ground on construction November 14 to transform the vacant and derelict building (on the corner of Kennedy Ave and Montgomery Rd) which once housed a Kroger into a vibrant cultural arts campus expected to attract thousands annually. I am working with them on media relations for the event.
Please click here to read a story in Soapbox Cincinnati.
The ground breaking will begin at 3:00 pm with the program portion beginning at 3:30 pm. City officials, Robert D. Lindner, funders, neighbors and school children will be in attendance. There will also be a performance by the Silverton Paideia show choir.
A decade since local residents joined to save a crumbling historic mansion and transform it into the Kennedy Heights Arts Center, that Center is now at the helm of this neighborhood transformation. The Arts Center’s new second location in the Kennedy Heights Cultural Campus, located two doors down from their historic mansion facility, will quadruple the size of that Center and double the number of people served (to nearly 10,000).
When completed in 2015, the 10,500 sq ft Kennedy Heights Arts Center Carl, Robert, Richard and Dorothy Lindner Annex will include a 3,000 sq ft multi-purpose event center for theatre, dance and music classes, workshops and performances; a state-of-the-art Scripps Howard Media Center that will offer arts education programs for all ages in video, photography, animation, website design and graphic design; and ten individual artist studios. A gallery in the lobby will be a venue for resident artist exhibits.
A $250,000 leadership gift from Robert and Betty Lindner paved the way for the $700,000 project. Other major contributors include: Greater Cincinnati Foundation, Scripps Howard Foundation, George and Margaret McLane Foundation, The Kroger Co., John A. Schroth Charitable Trust/PNC Bank Trustee, Louise Taft Semple Foundation, Thomas Emery Memorial, Ruth and Robert Conway Foundation and gift from many individual donors.
For the Lindner family, this revitalization carries special meaning. The siblings (Carl, Robert, Richard and Dorothy) attended Kennedy-Silverton School as children, which was torn down to build Kroger and ultimately is becoming transformed into the new Kennedy Heights Cultural Campus. They also played in the yard of the former funeral home on the grounds where the Kennedy Heights Arts Center sits today. The late Carl H. Lindner and Robert D. Lindner have been generous supporters of the Kennedy Heights Arts Center since its founding, contributing a combined total more than $900,000 over ten years to support renovations and programming.
In addition to the Kennedy Heights Arts Center Lindner Annex, the Kennedy Heights Cultural Campus will include the Kennedy Heights Montessori Center and space for a third organization. A $675,000 grant from the City of Cincinnati helped the nonprofit, volunteer-run Kennedy Heights Development Corporation to acquire the building; and KHDC spent additional funds to stabilize it before this ground breaking.
For more information on the Kennedy Heights Arts Center, please visit: www.kennedyarts.org.
