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From hip-hop dance sessions for grade-schoolers to watercolor landscape lessons for senior adults to an introduction to Google's Art Palette for teenagers, Arts Council Oklahoma City is continuing its mission of bringing the arts and the community together, even as the coronavirus pandemic forces people to stay apart.

"Bringing the arts and the community together is our mission, but given the state of the current environment, it's now keeping the arts and the community connected," said Nick Caudle, coordinator of Arts Council OKC's All Access Arts program.

Continuing the program’s mission of “access to the arts for all" in the days of social distancing and sheltering in place has meant reimagining three of its core initiatives: Arts in Schools, which takes professional teaching artists to under-served children across Oklahoma City via in-school and after-school programs; Creative Aging, which places teaching artists in senior living facilities across Oklahoma City; and the Teen Arts Council, which gets metro area adolescents into the arts and the local art community.

"The senior living facilities were the first ones to start banning outside people, and then the schools quickly followed and closed for the rest of the year," said Jillian Coker, All Access Arts director. "Essentially, what we're doing is making All Access Arts virtual through our website."