What We Do

We support personal expression.

The San Francisco Arts Education Project was founded in 1968, and for fifty-plus years has stayed true to its mission: to enrich the lives of children by facilitating hands-on participation in the visual and performing arts—taught by practicing artists.

We do this in many ways and across a multitude of disciplines.

SFArtsED supports artist residencies in an array of visual arts, dance, drama, musical theater, world rhythms, and choral expression at some twenty public schools and at after-school programs, where we also subsidize all administrative expenses. We offer weekend workshops in everything from collage to fashion design. And at our legendary summer camps, students are immersed in a wide range of expressive disciplines, with nearly twenty percent of campers receiving critical scholarship assistance.

Our musical theater troupe, the SFArtsED Players, offers a rigorous, after-school and weekend training program for serious young performers (ages 9-14), culminating in a fully-realized production every February at the Gateway Theater. Many of these talented students go on to attend Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts (SOTA) for high school, after a stringent audition process.

Artists, singers, and dancers at the high school and college levels benefit from internship opportunities at our summer camps and school programs. And students in SOTA’s technical theater program gain valuable outside experience in lighting, sound, and stage management at every Players’ performance.

Summer magic.

Our summer camps are legendary, offering students an array of creative expression (and often selling out far in advance). Working with inspiring SFArtsED mentors, children ages 6-14 immerse themselves in painting, drawing, singing, dance, sculpture, fashion design, and musical theater, often taking multiple sessions in the course of a summer. Summer starts now!

Home is where
the art is.

Since March, 2016, we have been fortunate to have an office and adjacent gallery/classroom space at the Minnesota Street Project in the Dogpatch arts district, where we hold workshops and exhibit student work—the sole non-profit surrounded by some of the most esteemed contemporary art galleries in San Francisco.

“Art can only be taught by artists. If a non-artist teaches a subject called art, it is non-art.”

— Ruth Asawa
Explore Our Programs