Downtown San Diego’s Monarch School, which provides accredited educations for disadvantaged and at-risk youth aged 7 to 18, has its own unique form of community outreach. It “” or, more specifically, its student body “” runs Cabo Café, a small public restaurant on its premises, designed to give the kids a handle on the day-to-day and the community a decent eatery at the same time.
There are a lot of good practical applications in that plan, the kinds that call on characteristics the students haven’t necessarily acquired amid their dire straits “” but their real value depends on the students’ aptitudes for creative problem solving. That’s where Monarch’s programs come in “” and that’s why, for the school, one opening at Point Loma’s Naval Training Center (NTC) is an idea whose time has come.
ARTS “” A Reason to Survive, designed to administer visual and performing arts-based programs to abused children aged 3 to 18 countywide, is accepting applications at its new center at 2820 Roosevelt Road on the NTC campus. Called the Pat d’Arrigo ARTS Center at NTC Promenade, it opened on Jan. 27 and is the latest of the 26 NTC buildings to go online and is the administrative center for 12 partner organizations that administer to 3,500 children. Monarch, with 100 students, is one of those partners; it expects to enroll about 20 kids at the new center by April. Rachelle Jacobson, Monarch’s creative director, says that move will come none too soon.
“We don’t have the space to [provide] the arts classes we need,” Jacobson said. “Our building [at 808 West Cedar St. downtown] can’t hold our equipment and students to adequately [institute] meetings. The ARTS opening will enable all that to happen.”
ARTS program director Lisa Saneda said that her organization provides arts programs to homeless children [San Diego has about 3,000] and kids abused in all manners. Many of the clients, she said, have emotional, behavioral and health issues such as terminal illnesses. Saneda added that the new building provides no residential facilities. ARTS’ annual budget is $450,000.
Wholesale studies about the arts’ effectiveness as a learning tool have made the rounds for decades, Saneda said. She cautioned, however, that since each child’s situation naturally requires a unique approach, there’s no guarantee that exposure to the arts will yield a positive outcome equal to the negative causes behind the child’s disadvantage.
“Everybody’s so different,” Saneda said, “and everybody handles the same situation differently. I’m sure there are anecdotal incidences here and there “” someone faced this and now he’s an international celebrity “” but [the extent of a child’s arts-based improvement] is hard to put a finger on.
“But I don’t think the arts hurt anybody,” Saneda continued. “They just don’t. I just don’t think enough people are experiencing the arts, and those that are may have other life expectations in their way that stop them from spreading the word about it. The arts help alleviate stress, help focus and have a calming effect on kids. It prepares them to be better, more productive people. Most big employers, after all, are looking for creative minds to help them solve their problems.”
For her part, Jacobson noted the strong kinetic effect that accompanies a child’s mastery of the arts. Painting, movement, writing, sculpture: All will eventually “get into their minds, their bodies. They remember commands more effectively, because their minds associate them with the art [they practice].”
And don’t kid yourself that the restaurant trade isn’t an art, with its litany of social and business skills attached. Monarch’s Cabo Café is thus a classroom in itself, with its employees about to reap a greater reward at NTC.
With the opening of the new center, ARTS will expand its programs from its 12-member client base to schools and community groups. It offers reduced-cost workshops, scholarships, rental space and a summer camp. Further information is available at 619-297-0112 or artsurvive.org.