Cultural Engagement

Arts & Education

The arts are crucial to a life of richness and emotion – we encourage you to help support your favorite arts and education organizations and help us keep St. Louis a cultural art destination.

We want St. Louis to be recognized as a leader in arts and education and foster a sense of community and pride around our highly talented, world-class cultural city.

Inspiring St. Louis to Come Together

What inspires communities to come together, to be stronger together, and put aside our differences? Cultural arts and engagement! Music, theater, dance, visual arts, crafts, painting, poetry are all important and prized forms of expression as far back as time can be measured.

Today, cultural art is a bridge that can bring us together, grow our understanding, expand our feelings of joy, and touch our hearts, while lessening the impact of socioeconomic and environmental instability.

A National Destination

The Berges Family Foundation is dedicated to the St. Louis cultural arts community. One of our goals is to help put St. Louis on the map for being a nationally-renowned cultural arts destination, bringing jobs and economic growth to our area, and making St. Louis a desirable place to socialize and call home. We are happy to say – St. Louis has embraced our efforts and is doing just that.

A few of the nonprofit organizations that we support and have watched blossom over the years include Opera Theatre, Metro Theater Company, Jazz St. Louis, St.  Louis Symphony Orchestra, The Rep, and COCA. There are many more cultural arts and education organizations that we believe add to the fabric of St. Louis – choose your favorite venue and be sure to support them and share their mission in any way you can – as a patron, a donator, or as a volunteer.

Cultural Arts Meets Youth Empowerment

We combine our love of the arts and our focus of youth empowerment by supporting area nonprofits that teach and encourage different forms of artistic expression from our youngest, most at-risk youth. These organizations, like COCA, are often in communities that benefit from the free expression, confidence, and revitalization that the cultural arts offer. We believe that the arts can affect powerful, positive change in each person and bring entire cities together for the better, and St. Louis is one of those cities.

Benefits of Cultural Arts

By being engaged as an artist, teacher, volunteer, parent; company, audience member, or participant, we can forget everything that is going on around us and just live in the moment – what a beautiful gift! Just as importantly, the social and human capital created by cultural arts and other benefits are countless. Here are just a few:

• Builds social strength and community
• Dramatically changes the lives of under-served youth
• Creates stronger social networks
• Delights all the senses and evokes deep emotions
• Improves coping abilities and confidence
• Increases tolerance and understanding
• Fosters a higher rate of educational and career success
• Connects people who may otherwise never be connected
• Creates job and economic growth
• Revitalizes communities
• Creates an impact for a more positive future

Support Your Favorite Organizations

We have seen the amazing, life-altering benefits of our city’s cultural arts programs for our at-risk youth. Through all odds like a broken home, no transportation, no means of support, and being ostracized by their peers, some of these young adults have excelled and gone on to elite performing arts colleges and universities – even Broadway!

Regardless of how small you feel your gift may be and that it doesn’t matter, there may be one child or young adult who can now go to an after-school program and start working toward a better life because your donation made the difference. We encourage you to support your favorite arts and education organizations and start changing lives today, one life at a time.