Louisville’s Cultural Pass Program gives youth the chance to take art classes, in addition to providing them access to museums and other institutions. Image courtesy of the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government.
The City of Louisville launched its Cultural Pass Program in 2014 as part of the Vision Louisville Initiative, a 25-year plan that aims to reinvigorate the city culturally and economically. The summer program distributes free passes to Louisville’s art and culture institutions with the aim of fostering creativity and civic engagement in the city’s young people while addressing summer learning loss. The Cultural Pass was greeted with unanticipated enthusiasm: in its first two days, the Louisville Public Library distributed all of the 10,000 passes that they thought would last the summer. The program now distributes 50,000 passes per year and, with the help of an NEH grant, is continuing to overcome the cultural and economic barriers that keep children from being able to visit cultural and art institutions.
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Through the Cultural Pass program, youth can visit more than 30 venues in the Lousiville metro area, including the Muhammad Ali Center, the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, and the Kentucky Derby Museum. Image courtesy of the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government.
In response to the Cultural Pass program, museum and other venues in the Louisville area have created new interactive programs for youth. Image courtesy of the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government.
Today, Cultural Passes provide free admission for a child and an accompanying adult to 38 venues in the Louisville area. Children can visit the Muhammad Ali Center or the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival. They can take ballet and art classes. And attendance at cultural centers has risen dramatically. The Little Loomhouse, a National Landmark that educates visitors about the history of textiles and weaving, sees as many as 90 Cultural Pass visitors per day in the summer. “They were bombarded with kids,” recalls Gretchen Milliken, who directs the program.
The Cultural Pass Program distributes free passes to Louisville’s art and culture institutions with the aim of fostering creativity and civic engagement in its youth. Video courtesy of Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government.
With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the city has been able to improve its Cultural Pass program by hiring a dedicated program director and providing transportation to cultural institutions—in 2017, the city provided 1,000 free bus passes. 42.25% of the passes now go to children in low-to-moderate income zip codes. The city is seeing one more happy side effect: a 16% increase in completion of its summer reading program throughout the city.
