When you donate to Center for the Arts Evergreen, you're helping us bring the arts and the community together. This year an anonymous donor has offered to match all of CAE's Colorado Gives Day contributions up to a total of $25,000.
Mission = To promote and cultivate artistic excellence and to enrich the art experience in our mountain community.
The Center for the Arts Evergreen (CAE), once known as the Evergreen Arts Council, was first incorporated as the Evergreen Center for the Arts in 1976 with three directors with the purpose of establishing a facility for the visual arts in Evergreen. In 1978, the organization received funding to purchase land. The Summerfest arts and craft fair was started and held on the property. This annual event became the primary source of funding for the organization. In 1982, Winterfest, a winter holiday arts and craft fair, was added. The organization continued to want an arts center, but it was not the right time. The land was sold and those funds were put into an investment account which exists yet today. In 1990, the organization's mission became "to promote and provide support for existing and future arts organizations in the Evergreen area." The group began the Arts in the Schools and grants for arts programs with funding coming from Summerfest, Winterfest and the interest from the investment fund. In 2002, the board expanded the organization's mission to once again include bring a primarily visual arts center to the community while continuing to support all arts in the mountain area. The board resolved to find and fund a home for the visual arts. In 2003, the organization found a home slated for demolition that through sweat equity and contributions became the Center for the Arts Evergreen, next to the Buchanan Park Rec Center in the Bergen Park area of Evergreen. By 2013 programs at Center for the Arts Evergreen had outgrown its tiny facility and the Board of Directors decided to search for a larger facility that could accommodate expansion of its educational offerings, small concerts in its gallery, new programs for adults with memory loss and new activities for both adult and children with physical and mental challenges. A capital campaign was started and money raised to purchase and totally renovate the Old Historic Bergen Community Church. On September 16, 2017, the ribbon was cut for the grand opening and programming in the new facility began, with classes in the fine arts and crafts, bigger and more ambitious gallery exhibitions and a series of concerts, lectures and other activities in the gallery. CAE is currently raising money for a 4,000 square foot addition to the facility that will house a state of the art ceramics studio, additional classrooms and gallery storage space. With this addition, Center for the Arts Evergreen will be able to serve its constituency in the mountain community for many years to come.
