The Misty Copeland Foundation's BE BOLD(Ballet Explorations, Ballet Offers Leadership Development) program is a free, child-centered, after-school dance program that will serve 8 to 10-year-old boys and girls, within their communities, at six sites in the Kips Bay and at the Madison Square Boys & Girls Clubs in New York. The twelve-week program, which launched this month, has five core elements: Introductory Ballet, Music for Ballet, Health & Wellness, Tutoring, and Mentoring.

"The BE BOLD program is designed for children from underserved communities who do not have the resources or accessibility for ballet classes," Misty exclusively told Kindred by Parents. "For children and families who have those resources and the access, that's wonderful and the hope is that they will include ballet and dance in their children's experiences along with other activities of interest."

The BE BOLD teaching artists were personally vetted and selected by Misty Copeland and her team at the foundation, completing a week of training in Harlem at the National Dance Institute Collaborative for Teaching and Learning. "NDI, founded by the late Jacques d'Amboise, has a long and impressive history of engaging tens of thousands of children of diverse backgrounds and abilities through arts education. I couldn't think of a better organization to help provide our teaching artists with the necessary tools to work with MCF's young participants," said Misty.

The program also reached out to Dr. Gess LeBlanc, a professor at Hunter College whose research focuses on culturally responsive teaching, to develop BE BOLD's evaluation system and measure program impact. The Ford Foundation and The Goldman Sachs Foundation's One Million Black Women initiative are lead founding funders. Other founding funders include the Arison Arts Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, John and Jody Arnhold, and the Wendy E. Scripps Foundation. One Million Black Women aims to impact the lives of at least one million Black women by 2030. Goldman Sachs' own research on Black Womenomics shows that continued investments in Black women will inspire economic growth, creating a more equitable society.