Community Partnerships

The Museum's education staff works with community partners to facilitate and plan programs which enhance involvement in our Mississippi communities and engage adults and children with art, literacy, and the creative spirit.

The Museum is committed to reaching the broadest audience possible and relies on partners in the community to fulfill this commitment.  We are proud to partner with many outstanding organizations, and we are always looking for new ways to collaborate with people and organizations.  Our partnerships include:

Art in Mind

Art in Mind is a program, presented in collaboration with the Mississippi Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, which seeks to address the needs of the growing number of people in Mississippi who are and will be affected by Alzheimer’s. Art in Mind piloted in Fall 2011, with Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers from St. Catherine’s Campbell Cove visiting the Museum to spend time in the galleries looking at art as well as in the studio creating their own work. Building on the success of the pilot, the Museum and the Alzheimer’s Association are pleased to offer this free, public program to individuals with early stage dementia and their caregivers on the 4th Wednesday of each month from 10:00 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. at the Museum. Interested in participating in Art in Mind or have a loved one who is?  Download the registration packet and return to Sara Murphy, Community Outreach Coordinator, at the Alzheimer’s Association via e-mail at info@msalz.org or by phone at 601.987.0020.

Midtown Partners

The Museum works with Midtown Partners to deliver an afterschool program to approximately twenty five 5th graders.  Midtown Jackson is located near downtown Jackson between Fortification Street (S); Woodrow Wilson Avenue (N); West Street (E); Mill Street (W).  Museum educators work with students to explore concepts of urban design and landscape through a variety of artistic media.  The Midtown Project is made possible through the generous support of the Walker Foundation.

Operation Shoestring

Operation Shoestring is a community-based organization located in Jackson that operates on the premise that every child deserves a chance at a promising future and that all families should have equal opportunities and access to tools necessary to improve and succeed.

Since 2009, the Museum has worked with Operation Shoestring to provide high-quality arts instruction as part of Shoestring's larger effort to improve students' academic performance as well as enhance their quality of life socially, economically, and spiritually.  Student participants, who attend one of three Jackson Public Schools (Galloway Elementary, Brown Elementary, or Rowan Middle School), gather after school at the Operation Shoestring site on Bailey Avenue.  There, they learn about artists and their mediums, techniques for working in different mediums, and art vocabulary so they can talk descriptively about visual art.  The program is participatory in nature: students create their own works of art, take field trips to the Museum, and work collectively to install exhibitions of their own works.  In addition to the academic enrichment of this program, the experience builds community by bringing together parents, peers, and teachers, and also provides the students with increased self esteem as well as strengthened motivation and discipline.

Parents for Public Schools

Ask 4 More Arts, run by Jackson-based Parents for Public Schools, is a school-community-arts partnership that operateson the belief that students in the Jackson Public Schools need arts education to bolster their academic performance and to prepare them to be active citizens in the community.  Among other things, Ask 4 More Arts provides grants to local schools to support artist residencies in schools and also provides teachers with professional development training.   The Museum is actively involved in this work, supporting both the JumpstART Artist Residency program as well as the Professional Development for the educators in JPS.  In addition, Ask 4 More Arts and MMA partnered on a successful program called "LifeShards," a community mosaic program inspired by the "shards" or broken pieces left by Hurricane Katrina.  This hands-on Saturday workshop was created after Hurricane Katrina for both displaced coastal citizens and local residents.

21st Century

21st Century Community Learning Centers Program, established by Congress in 2001 as part of the No Child Left Behind Act, is a federal initiative that seeks to provide after school enrichment opportunities that support student learning and development for students who attend high poverty, low-performing schools.  The Mississippi Museum of Art has been involved in the Jackson Public Schools' 21st Century Community Learning Center since its inception.  After school art classes are taught at the Museum by artists specially trained to reinforce and complement the regular academic program of the participating students.  Exhibition and curriculum-based lesson plans are developed as well as field trips and guided tours of MMA.