ABOUT BERKS ARTS
When people come together to enjoy a concert or an art exhibit or a play, magic happens. Suddenly, the whole gathering is focused on that art, and while everyone in the room experiences it slightly differently, all are reacting together to something beautiful, inspiring, thought-provoking, maybe deeply emotional. It’s one time when, even as strangers, we can connect in the most human way: laughing, crying, clapping, sighing with pleasure.
During the year and a half when the Covid pandemic shut down public performances, we all began to realize how much we would lose if these events disappeared forever. When the first live concerts began to happen again in 2021, people often became tearful in between their shouts of happiness. We were like plants receiving water after a long drought. We began to heal together.
This is why Berks Arts exists. We know how vital the arts are for our county—even as many people take them for granted. Because when they disappear, we all lose. It’s not just about the loss of revenue from tickets bought, meals eaten, hotel rooms reserved. It’s about the loss of human beings at their very best, creating and critiquing and playing and practicing, all so that we can hope for a better, more tolerant, more joyful life.
“The arts can enrich all of us in this nation as individuals. The arts can enrich all of our communities around the country. And the arts can connect us to each other like nothing else can.”
From its inception as the Berks Arts Council in 1969, Berks Arts has focused on promoting the arts in the Greater Reading Community. Through the creation and support of visual and performing arts events, Berks Arts continues to carry out its mission: To Inspire, Engage and Unite our community through arts education, collaboration and presentation.
Our vision is to support community and economic growth, promote positive change, and create more connections. We seek to help Berks County become a more creative, more desirable, more resilient community.
We invite you to join us in this noble mission, and we thank each and every individual and organization for your amazing support, in all forms, for the arts in our community.
Berks Arts receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.