Cool Culture
Cool Culture seeks to increase access to New York’s arts, cultural and scientific institutions by low-income families. The underlying premise is that family visits to museums, botanical gardens, wildlife centers, and other cultural institutions provide young children with early learning experiences that build language and literacy skills fundamental to school success. Cool Culture distributes a Family Pass to about 35,000 families annually via a network of more than 300 government-subsidized Head Start, early childcare centers, and pre-kindergarten classes.
The nontransferable card is good for free admission. Each family also receives a subscription to Family Time, a quarterly publication to orient families about the city’s cultural institutions. Each participating agency designates a “Cultural Liaison” at the site. Programs address financial, informational, and perceptual barriers that prevent low-income families from making visits to cultural institutions with their children.