Quick Facts
- Settlement is the largest community school of the arts in the United States with more than 300,000 students served since its founding in 1908.
- 15,000 students from every zip code zone in the eight county Greater Philadelphia area participate in programs and activities in music, dance and visual arts at six branch locations in South, West and Northeast Philadelphia, Germantown, Jenkintown and Camden, NJ.
- 40% of those students receive close to $2 million in financial aid and scholarship assistance.
- Settlement provides a daily Head Start arts-based pre-school, Kaleidoscope, to 114 low-income inner-city children at two branches that is a nationally recognized model program.
- Settlement offers extensive teacher training programs to help pre-school and elementary school teachers incorporate arts strategies and activities into their regular classrooms.
- Other programs, such as an Advanced Study Program for pre-professional teens, Adult Chamber Players and Daytime Seniors for retired adults, and the Therapeutic Arts Program for children and adults with disabilities have all served as models for like-minded efforts in cities across the country.
- With 325 faculty and staff, Settlement is the largest employer of musicians in the tri-state region.
- To celebrate its Centennial, Settlement named the Settlement 100 – a group of 100 interesting, diverse and unexpected individuals whose Settlement experience helped shape their lives. The list includes a Nobel Laureate, two MacArthur Fellows, four Pulitzer Prize winners, a Fulbright scholar, two Academy Award winners, three Grammy award nominees, an Emmy award winner, a Tony award nominee, several published authors, elected officials and many distinguished performers in all genres of music.