The community gathered to honor donors of the Flourish Campaign for the Performing and Visual Arts on Saturday, April 6th. The celebration, hosted by the Oakwood Schools Foundation, whose trustees, volunteers, and staff have led the campaign to the opening of the Rick and Jane Schwartz Performing Arts Wing, took place before the Fine Arts Boosters’ Young@Art event. The dedication included a reveal of the new donor gratitude wall which lists major donors to the campaign and plaques for rooms named by donors. (Naming opportunities remain available, please reach out to [email protected] for more information.) Attendees heard remarks by donors and volunteers instrumental to the project and students impacted by the new spaces.
Opening remarks were given by OSF Development Chair Amy Martin and Superintendent Dr. Neil Gupta. Attendees also heard from OSF Vice Chair and Flourish Campaign Chair Kevin Jones and donors Katy Dalrymple and Christopher Skardon. Students Wright Chen, Mila Gelbart, and Henry Almoney also gave remarks speaking to the incredible impact new and modern spaces have on their abilities to perform and the value of the arts in education. “Your support equals better music education” Wright said succinctly, as he expanded on the improved education opportunities created by the new arts wing.
This dedication culminates the opening events for the new building that is providing much-needed upgrades for our current and future Oakwood students, and highlights the goals of the remaining two phases of the Flourish Campaign – enhancements to the Auditorium and renovation of Visual Arts classrooms.
Ground was broken on the new wing beginning construction December 21 of 2022 and stayed closely on target with teams working around the School calendar for safety reasons. Project architecture, design and construction were handled by DANIS Construction and Ruetschle Architects.
The new Rick and Jane Schwartz Performing Arts Wing includes brand new, spacious, acoustically tuned rooms for band, choir and orchestra classes and all arts performances, as well as community gatherings including monthly School Board of Education meetings. Additional features of the new wing are Director offices, individual practice rooms and much-needed second floor storage for equipment, band uniform and instrument storage. Students began using the newly constructed arts wing in February after a special ribbon cutting held by Oakwood Schools that opened use of the new spaces.
The Performing Arts Wing is the result of the largest privately funded campaign in the history of the Oakwood community and became a reality thanks to the generous philanthropy of the community, alumni, and dear friends. This very special project for our Schools and the community would not have been possible without the strong partnership between the Oakwood Schools Foundation and Oakwood Schools.
The next steps for the $8.8 million dollar Flourish Campaign includes support for enhancements to the Auditorium and renovations of the visual arts classrooms. More than 7 million has been raised to date for these improvements. The Auditorium upgrades are slated to be accomplished next based on the response and support from the donor community.
All naming and donor recognition opportunities are able to be updated throughout the completion of the campaign that continues to this day. For how to give or more information on what’s next, please visit oakwoodschoolsfoundation.org.