TEDxPhiladelphiaED - Barbara Allen - Fresh Artists July 27, 2011

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Barbara Chandler Allen is a serious serial nonprofit arts entrepreneur. After managing world-famous art collections at museums at Harvard, in Cleveland and Philadelphia, Barbara retired to spend 20 years at home raising two boys. Volunteering in a start-up charter school kindled a passion to provide access for all kids to a quality public education. She saw a novel solution to keep a vibrant artmaking program in severely needy public schools by partnering with hundreds of K-12 inner city kids to create a sustainable funding stream for art supplies and innovative art programs. In addition, Fresh Artists, through the children's brilliant art, blasts the powerful message to corporate and civic leaders that all kids can learn and they have powerful potential to change their world. Making invisible kids visible is the mission with the expectation that substantive changes must take place in the way we educate our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

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