Principal Maritsa Alger grew up in a home where dancing “was part of our culture.” When she learned about a Young Audiences of Virginia program that teaches ballroom dancing to elementary students, she eagerly signed up Norfolk’s Willard Model Elementary School for after-school lessons.

Besides teaching fourth- and fifth-graders new skills, the dance program “builds students’ confidence, promotes health and encourages multi-culturalism,” Alger says. “But the real payoff from learning to dance the cha cha, fox trot and salsa is during the school day.” Teachers find that students in the ballroom program treat others with respect and are willing to put time into practicing math, grammar and other classroom skills.

Dancing is just one way Young Audiences reaches more than 146,000 students in Hampton Roads each year. “Our mission is fostering the creative development of youth through the arts,” says Tom Crockett, executive director. By bringing musicians, poets, storytellers and other artists into schools “we trigger students’ imaginations, mastery, artistry and self-expression.”

Since 1955 Young Audiences has excelled at bringing high-caliber performers into schools. But in recent years the program has branched out to include artist residencies so students can learn firsthand to dance, act, perform or write poetry.

Recently Crockett was pondering how to tackle Young Audiences’ new goal of increasing its endowment. Then he learned that the organization had received a $1 million Batten Endowment Challenge grant. With help from a Building Excellence grant from The Norfolk Foundation the Young Audiences staff is gearing up to raise additional funds in order to receive up to another $500,000 matching grant from the Batten Educational Achievement Fund of The Norfolk Foundation.

Crockett is confident that hard work and “the prestige of the Batten name” will help Young Audiences meet its fundraising goal.

To learn more about Young Audiences of Virginia visit www.yav.org.