START With The Arts, Inc. founded in 2003 is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to fostering creativity in young children. START targets 8-11 year old children.

Our theme is, "Explore-Discover-Create" (E.D.C.) representing 3 phases of idea making and how creativity connects the Arts, Sciences and Business communities.

Our mission is to:

• Promote the Arts as a primary building block for personal growth
• Foster, develop and embrace children's natural talent for idea making
• Integrate and balance creative skills and artistic endeavor with academic achievement in early education

There are two facets of the START program:

• MEDIA - A 3-part DVD series for classroom viewing featuring celebrity guest artists complimented by an audio CD series and booklet on idea-making principles

• LIVE - Creative workshops presented by drummers Bob Gatzen and Billy Ashbaugh at schools that viewed the DVD series. The workshops are highly interactive with idea games, musical performances and compositions developed with the students based on the E.D.C. concept.

Our first DVD, "Start Cookin'", lays out the basics of idea-making. It features celebrity guests Emeril Lagasse and Doc Gibbs from the popular "Emeril Live" cooking show. Joining Emeril are Bill Nye The Science Guy seen on PBS and the Disney Channel along with Mike Scully, head writer and executive producer for the Simpson's animated TV show and Everyone Loves Raymond, all of whom are connected to the arts.

The CD series, entitled STARTunes, features original music based on idea making principles. STARTunes is part of a unique audio book, "Idea-Making for Kids" (or the kid in you).

START is broad in scope. We are not teaching music, per se; rather, we use it as a tool to inspire kids to think creatively, suggesting that music and the arts are an ideal format to develop creative skills.