Urban Gateways was founded in 1961 by Jessie Woods, Charles Burns, Dr. Raymond Jerrems, Connie Williams and Helen Kolar to address the lack of artistic exposure in Chicago-area schools, especially those in the inner-city. These founders believed in arts education as a vehicle for social change, and as a result, they focused their efforts on providing local schools with free tickets to musical recitals, orchestra concerts, operas, and theater productions. 
A year after its inception, Urban Gateways received its first major donation, $20,000, in the form of concert tickets for neighborhood children and schools. From there, they’ve continued to grow. Now 50 years later, Urban Gateways provides more than 100,000 Chicago-area youth with in-and out-of-school arts programming in the literary, media, performing and visual arts disciplines. Urban Gateways’ mission is to spark the full creative potential of all young people. To accomplish this mission, the organization promotes learning in and through the arts within the Chicago metropolitan area, a playground for diversity in art.
To learn more about Urban Gateways, please visit http://www.urbangateways.org and follow them on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/urbangateways
