Who We Are
Empowering children to find joy and
authentic self-expression through the arts.
The Arts Bus is a traveling pop-up theater, music & dance stage, ceramic/paint/textile studio, library and creative safe space. Its creation responded to the challenge parents in rural towns face attempting to transport children to educational and cultural activities at distant sites by bringing the visual, performing and literary arts to kids where they live.
The impact of the Arts Bus Project seeks from its work is (1) improvement in the quality art programming provided to children of Central Vermont; (2) emphasizing public commitment to the importance of the arts for children; (3) affirming the value of the region’s many excellent artists and cultural institutions as EncourageMentors and resources for young people; and (4) consistent integration of quality art education into the core of school curricula and community life.
Our Mission
Our History
A Community Project
The Arts Bus was conceived in 2008 by a group of parents, cultural leaders, and public school principals and teachers from Braintree and Randolph as a response to the continuing need of children to have consistent and meaningful exposure to the arts. The members of the group all shared a strong conviction that learning through the arts and living with the arts should not be peripheral but basic in the educating process, and that a continuing proximity to the arts accelerates healthy development during early childhood and serves people through every subsequent stage of life, profoundly affecting human function, sensitivity and fulfillment.
Knowing the financial pressure on small rural schools was making it difficult for the schools to provide the kind of arts education children need and deserve, our citizens’ coalition wanted to help the schools supplement their curriculum. We knew we needed to be a charitable organization to achieve our purpose, something the founding members from The Chandler Center for the Arts understood perfectly, so they sponsored our nonprofit status.
We were also aware of a nagging transportation problem faced by young people and their families in rural America — many parents (particularly in single-parent households or in households where two parents both work full-time jobs) are unable to drive children to enrichment activities at distant sites. So, why not bring creative experiences to them? A retired school bus driver donated his bus to us in memory of his wife, a music teacher, and we were on our way!
It ended up taking us two years to makeover the bus. With the fabulous contributions of students at Vermont State University, Norwich University, cartoonist Phil Godenschwager and a tag team of local artists and students,
the magic of the bus
came to life!
Roll forward sixteen years, and today The Arts Bus is a fixture of quality art enrichment throughout Vermont in demand year-round from afterschool programs, public & alternative schools, preschools, libraries, recreation departments, summer camps and others to bring the wonderful world of art to their neighborhoods & facilities.
Meet The Team
Executive Director:
Genny Albert is a late-blooming artist with a head for math and love of community. For two decades, Genny was an executive in the pension fund advisory business with a continual commitment to charitable work. More excited about the missions of nonprofits and making communities beautiful on the inside, in 2011, she dramatically altered course.
In 2012, she founded an organizational health consultation business focused on building non-profits from tiny to college-sized. Thereafter, in response to community need, Genny started a one-woman operation of artistic expression involving interior design, personal/sous chef, gardening, sewing, animal and property care. Through this time, she traveled across the North American continent, meeting, making and learning from new friends at each stop.
In 2018, Genny arrived at Brookfield, Vermont to care for goats, chickens, a cat and Buddy the Great Pyrenees. It didn’t take long for the beauty of the area and its people to work their magic, and she is thrilled to call Vermont her new home. After 6 years and working with thousands of Vermont’s kids, she is hooked!
Genny believes there is an artist
in everyone just learning when
and where to express its best self.
Program & Media Manager:
Morgan Menzel is a brightly-dressed, cheerful and enthusiastic artist with a love for children that resides in her heart. She initially came aboard the bus as a summer art educator in 2023, jumping right into The Puppet Factory production in Rutland City and extending over 10 weeks of touring & teaching resins, acrylics, wind & heat powered art, painting, dancing and so much more! Since then, her time on The Arts Bus has grown exponentially and she is now a full-time spirited addition to the team, with particularly awesome skills in ceramics, children’s crafting and teasing out smiles & giggles.
Prior to her work on the Bus, Morgan spent her life energy with children of all ages and abilities. She was once an early childhood educator for children 6 weeks old to preschool age, a 1:1 paraprofessional for children with special needs, the director of an afterschool program, and an assistant teacher in a preschool classroom.
Morgan always has an appetite for learning,
which presently is focused on the world of gardening,
carpentry, chicken rearing and expanding her love
of music. She is also a sea turtle aficionado
— ask her about it when you see her on the Bus!
Featured Artist Educators + EncourageMentors
Ida Mae Specker
Folk Musician & Songwriter
A 3rd generation fiddle player, Ida Mae was born in a one room cabin in the woods of Vermont. Along with her older sister Lila, she learned to play the fiddle at a very early age from her father John Specker. Ida Mae fuses original, contemporary, and traditional material, bringing heartfelt new life and relevance to the chain of American folk music.
Ida traveled with The Arts Bus in Summer ’22 recording her original song “Vermont, Our Home” at 3 camps with over 70 kids in Vermont and again in Summer ’23 for a 3-day stop in St. Johnsbury. She’s a welcomed addition to the bus, offering her amazing artistry with unique ability to reach into the past and put a legacy of folk music into Vermont’s future.
April Lopez, Theatre Direction & Production
Morgan Easton
STEAM +
Print Screening
Katie Runde
Visual Artist, Sculptor
Jordyn Willett
Tie Dye & Textiles
Curran Broderick
Photography
Susan Rule, Musician
Song Leader, Stage Director
Summer EncourageMentors
The Arts Bus seeks “EncourageMentors” from 12-18 years old to hop aboard the bus to help us achieve our mission, learn & teach art, and earn a paycheck! Pictured here are Kiara & Brooke, who joined the Summer ’23 Art Adventure Tour in Rutland City, South Royalton & Randolph summer camp programs to make puppets, resin runes & zodiac signs, acrylic flow paintings, cotton candy…and friends for life!
2020 EncourageMentor Alexandra impressed us so much at Imagination Camp that she joined our 2020 adventure tour as a fantastic guide for sock puppetry, scriptwriting, soundtrack production and live theatre.
Board of Trustees
Bethany Silloway
Trustee & Board President
Courtney Branstetter-Bowen
Trustee & Board Treasurer
Kirstie Bailey
Trustee & Board Secretary
Joan Feierabend
Trustee
Heroes
We all need heroes, especially the super kind!
The Arts Bus was founded by
heroes of the arts + children
and is powered by grantors, program partners, sponsors and donations.
Thank you to ALL that give us
the power to empower!
Grantors
Friends + Family
Program Partners
❤️ Tony Keller Family 🧡 Sprague Family 💛 Mary Doyle 💚Leonard Family 💙 Menzel Family 💜
❤️ Hackett Family 🧡 Kathy Leonard 💛 McCardle Family 💚 Easton Family 💙 Ashley Bouchard 💜
❤️ Kenneth Vandermark 🧡 Susan Mills 💛 Langford Family 💚 Heather Bagley 💙Beth Springston 💜
