Art Adventures in Aaronsburg: When Teens Bet on the Power of Creative Belonging

By the time the school bus winds past cornfields and front porches in Penns Valley, kids are already thinking about where they’ll go — and often, there aren’t many places to land. Public gathering spaces are few, and programs beyond school walls can be hard to find without a long drive. That’s why a $3,000 grant to the Aaronsburg Civic Club (ACC) from Centre Foundation’s Centre PACT feels bigger than its price tag. It’s a vote of confidence from local teenagers that creativity, emotional literacy, and community pride are worth investing in right here at home.

Centre PACT (Philanthropic Actions Created by Teens) is Centre Foundation’s hands-on philanthropy program for high school students. Each year, members explore issues affecting their peers, evaluate nonprofit proposals, and award real grants. Since 2016, they’ve granted more than $64,900 to local nonprofits through the Centre PACT Fund and community contributions, learning to pool resources, weigh impact, and invest where it matters most.

This year’s cohort awarded $12,903 to six organizations advancing equity, education, mental health, and access to enrichment. ACC’s “Art Adventures in Aaronsburg” stood out because it meets a simple but stubborn need: after-school and summer arts programming that welcomes rural youth without auditions, fees, or long drives out of town.

Aaronsburg Civic Club is no newcomer to neighbor-to-neighbor problem-solving. Founded in 1944, the club has kept public spaces thriving and community life stitched together through the decades. From stewarding the Aaronsburg Community Building and Wert Memorial Park to launching programs that meet folks where they are, ACC has always adapted to serve its neighbors. Art Adventures continues that tradition with a partner built for this moment: Ridgelines Language Arts.

Ridgelines, a local 501(c)(3) founded in 2017, teaches and celebrates the language arts including poetry, storytelling, and songwriting in places that don’t always get first pick for arts education such as a youth detention center, a nursing home, a domestic-violence shelter, and a public library. Together, ACC and Ridgelines are creating a space where Penns Valley youth can write and illustrate collaborative poems, create large-scale projects like this summer art camp’s pop-up mural, meet local artists and craftspeople, and use both language and visual arts to explore their questions, voices, and imaginations.

Andrea L. Vonada, president of the Aaronsburg Civic Club, emphasizes how meaningful this support is: “The impact of the PACT grant is significant as funding from other resources was not available this year. Having been selected by this impressive group of students is an honor. During the presentation program, I was very impressed watching and listening to the students who have embraced philanthropy at such a young age. One of the presenters even said they wished they’d had a program like this growing up in a rural setting like east Penns Valley. That really resonated with me. We are now gearing up for the Fall After-School Art Thursdays, and this grant ensures we can keep the program free and open to as many children as possible.”

Ridgeline’s Lead Teaching Artist, Abby Minor, reflects: “As a local artist and teacher, I first started a small after-school art program at the Aaronsburg Community Building in the spring of 2015. Since then, we’ve expanded to include weekly after-school art in both spring and fall, as well as an annual summer art camp. These programs involve not only rural youth, but also community volunteers of all ages who share a variety of skills—everything from writing poetry to printmaking, yoga, painting, origami, and more. With the Centre PACT grant this year, we’ve been able to reach new students, buy new supplies, print beautiful posters of students’ poetry, and feel a great boost of confidence in our work! All of us—students, volunteers, teachers, and families—are really enjoying this grassroots expansion of our art adventures in Aaronsburg, as we explore our own creativity and build connections through artmaking.”

The nuts and bolts matter too. Art Adventures is free. Drop-ins are welcome. The team has established bus transportation from the Penns Valley Area School District (that houses elementary and intermediate students), because a great program can still fail if you can’t get to it. And when students are ready to share, the community shows up. Poems from last year’s Art & Imagination Club are currently being exhibited at the Bellefonte Art Museum, on view through November 2025, where museum-goers can take in the brilliance of young writers who might otherwise be overlooked.

But the story worth returning to is Centre PACT itself. Teenagers looked at their community and chose to fund belonging. They saw that art is not a luxury; it is a practical way to teach emotional literacy and pride of place. They understood that rural kids deserve the same rich menu of options that their suburban and urban peers expect. And then they put dollars behind that belief.

That is the kind of local wisdom philanthropy needs more of: eyes open, ears tuned to lived experience, and bets placed on the everyday institutions that keep a community whole. In Aaronsburg, the return on that bet looks like a kid stepping off a bus on a Thursday afternoon, heading into a room where their voice matters and their story has a home. That is an adventure worth funding.

Want to make an impact like this? Join Centre PACT!
Centre PACT is seeking new student members for the 2025–2026 school year. Meetings are held monthly on Sundays from 5:30–7:30 PM, with the location to be announced by October 1.

Membership Requirements

Be enrolled in a Centre County high school, grades 9–12
Attend monthly meetings and complete homework between sessions
Bring your voice, ideas, and curiosity about how to make a difference
Be ready to discuss issues, consider alternatives, and collaborate with peers

Applications are due Tuesday, October 7, 2025.
Learn more and apply at centrefoundation.org/get-involved/centre-pact