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In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF) will conduct their annual arts symposium virtually this year.

The theme for the 2020 Black Belt Arts Symposium will be “Weaving Arts into Literacy”.

According to a press release from BBCF, this year’s focus on literacy stems from concerns from Black Belt parents and educators that third grade students will not advance in their education because of the Alabama Literacy Act passed by the state legislature in May, 2019.

BBCF stated that these concerns have only been heightened since the closure of schools and disruption of traditional education since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“What once was a great concern over yet another hurdle has become a severe concern with both pandemics (COVID-19 and systemic racism),” said BBCF President Felecia Lucky. “These pandemics are disproportionately affecting disadvantaged and disabled children in the Black Belt in their ability to graduate school. The Black Belt Arts Symposium underscores a fresh approach in bringing together cross-disciplinary resources from the arts to reinforce elementary school students’ advancement through the third -grade curriculum.”

The 2020 Black Belt Arts Symposium will iterate the importance of literacy through a series of three online virtual symposium sessions on July 21, August 18 and September 15, all of which will take place from 10 a.m. – noon.

The three online symposium events are being produced by the Black Belt Community Foundation in conjunction with the University of West Alabama (UWA)and made possible by the support of the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA) and the National Endowment for the Arts.

“We are proud to work with UWA and grateful as always for the continuing support of ASCA,” said Lucky.

Parents and arts are invited to participate in the 2020 Black Belt Arts Symposium by registering for free at https://bit.ly/BlackBeltArts.

BBCF stated that online sessions will be guided by noted experts in their fields and regular updates on symposium details will be posted to BBCF’s website and Facebook pages as they are announced.