WHO WE ARE
CREATING A BETTER COMMUNITY THROUGH ART EDUCATION
Creative Plains is dedicated to providing art education resources that nurture, support, and inspire creativity.
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Creative Plains was originally established by the Farstad Foundation as an answer to a growing need for both arts education and youth services in the Fargo metro area, providing arts services to underserved youth at no cost.
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What began in a modest classroom space with limited resources grew into a team of professional artists and educators who brought high-quality programming to students in a beautiful environment. During the time that we existed, we provided 12,862 individual art experiences, that served 4,919 people working with 54 different partner organizations.
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Although the foundation no longer exists as a non-profit organization, the programming and curriculum is available in the form of online resources held within our resource library. We hope that you benefit from the projects and lesson plans shared there.
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
– Steve Jobs
WHY WE CARE
When youth perform better in school and in their careers we are positively impacting their futures and are making our community stronger.
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Low-income students who are highly engaged in the arts are more than twice as likely to graduate college as peers with no arts education.
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Disadvantaged students with a high participation in the arts have a drop-out rate of 4 percent compared to 22 percent for peers with low participation in the arts.
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Participating in the arts is shown to create a feeling of connection and community, which is proven to be a driver in helping people rise out of poverty.
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Most business owners say creativity is the number one skill they seek in employees.
HOW WE'RE DIFFERENT
We provide online resources that tie art education to important 21st century skills like creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.
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By providing lesson plans, project ideas, and curriculum we make teaching art easy and fun for educators and facilitators within social service organizations.​
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Not all public schools offer dedicated arts services or provide adequate time for arts learning during the school day so our Art Club Lesson Plans provide an easy road map for teachers to create Art Clubs within their schools or programs.
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