Each year, the Governor’s Awards in the Arts recognize an individual or organization that has played a leading role in encouraging the arts in a particular community with the Community Arts Award. The 2001 recipient is the Covington Community Center, which offers unique arts opportunities for neighborhoods, young people, and families to promote active and creative cultural expression in an urban environment, building community neighborhood by neighborhood throughout Northern Kentucky.

Recognized locally by businesses for its contributions to quality of life, the Covington Community Center has received federal, state, and local support for a number of outstanding community arts projects, including serving as Kentucky’s host site for Artists and Communities: America Creates for the Millennium, participating in the development partnership for the Frank Duveneck Center, and sponsoring the many murals that dot the neighborhoods of Covington.

From murals to mosaics, the center’s projects involve youth, neighborhood associations, educational institutions, businesses, and individuals. These projects forge such a tight sense of community that the bonds survive long after the paint dries. For more than two decades, the center has been a vital contributor to its community, not by dictating needs, but by acting as a catalyst for solutions. Integrating the efforts of citizens, businesses, and schools, the center has facilitated community oral history, visual arts, dance, theater, and music. This wide-ranging involvement assures a strong sense of community that reflects the diversity of the center’s constituents.

Program 439

Profiles five recipients of the 2001 Governor’s Awards in the Arts, given each year to honor Kentucky individuals, businesses, and organizations that make outstanding and significant contributions to the arts in Kentucky. (#439)