Have you visited your college’s art museum lately? Gone to a student theatre production? Explored the library and looked at an exhibit on rare books? These are opportunities that you might be taking for granted, but many families have limited access to the cultural institutions that are commonplace on many college campuses.

Cool Culture is making New York City’s cultural institutions more accessible to low-income families. A solid education must extend beyond what kids learn in school, but visiting museums, wildlife centers, zoos, and botanical gardens can be both cost prohibitive and intimidating for a family with limited means. By building partnerships with many of these institutions, Cool Culture is able to offer a Family Pass that grants low-income families access to 71 cultural institutions in New York City. Member families are also provided with “a quarterly publication that provides a borough-by-borough listing of cultural attractions, including practical information on hours and public transportation, as well as a calendar of events especially geared toward families and young children.”

Cool Culture also offers Cultural Liaison Training to help member families become more comfortable visiting cultural institutions. This program trains Head Start, Day Care, and public school staff as well as parents/guardians on how to maximize the educational value of visits to museums and other institutions for children. Those who undergo this training become Cultural Liaisons and help other families to make more of the experiences granted by a Cool Culture Family Pass.

Cool Culture is currently hiring a Program Assistant to communicate and work with partner institutions, manage enrollment, and assist with educational workshops. This positions is also responsible for fielding public inquiries, keeping Cool Culture’s website up to date, and taking on a variety of special projects.

If you love the arts, are preferably bilingual (Spanish and English), and have excellent organizational skills, you might be able to make a difference by working at Cool Culture. You can see more about the Program Assistant in the job listing on idealist.org or you can submit a cover letter, resume and WRITING SAMPLE to: Candice Anderson, Executive Director, hr@cool-culture.org.

Cool Culture is also always looking for volunteers to help them enrich the lives of their member families. So if working for them isn’t a possibility, why not send an e-mail to info@cool-culture.org and ask what you can do to help?

Note: On April 26th we revisited entry-level jobs at Cool Culture.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• The Cool Culture Home Page
• Program Assistant Job Listing
• More Background Info on Cool Culture
• Cool Culture History
• List of Participating Institutions
• Cool Culture Volunteer Application

What do you know about Cool Culture? Leave a comment?

We've identified Cool Culture as having career opportunities in the following categories:

• all employers
• arts
• museum
• New York
• non-profit
• program development

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2 responses to “Cool Culture”

1. Sarah Dixon says:

   November 19, 2007 at 9:41 am

   Hi there

   This looks interesting – I note that there seem to be no botanic gardens on your participants list. I thought I’d let you know that you can place a notice on our website, its free and viewed by hundreds of people in botanic gardens.
   If you’d like to let me know and we can spread the word.

   Sarah

   Reply
2. Willy Franzen says:

   November 19, 2007 at 1:00 pm

   Hi Sarah,

   Thanks for your post. I’m not sure if you noticed, but we are not affiliated with Cool Culture. We’re just featuring their jobs on our site because we like what they have to offer, and we think our readership of college aged job seekers will too. If you’d like to directly contact Cool Culture, you can go to their homepage at http://cool-culture.org/index.html and let them know about your offer to post a notice.

   Willy

   Reply