City Hearts Celebrates 20th Anniversary & 20,000 Kids With Arts Festival
Monday January 31, 2:10 pm ET

LOS ANGELES, CA--(MARKET WIRE)--Jan 31, 2005 -- City Hearts: Kids Say Yes to the Arts, an internationally recognized arts intervention organization that nurtures thousands of the community's most impoverished children, celebrated their 20th anniversary on January 18 at their 3,000-square-foot studio downtown. Since 1984, City Hearts has taught the arts to over 20,000 children with such programs as The Shakespeare Challenge, Fresh Focus Photography, Dance for Life and ALITE (Arts & Literacy for Tomorrow's Education).

Jane Seymour (honorary chairperson), her husband, James Keach, and Sharon Lawrence were in attendance to enjoy the celebration. Seymour and Lawrence have both been very active within the program, teaching the children dance and theatre. The celebration showcased entertainment by the children, including modern dance performances, stage combat, a rendition of "It's The Hard Knock Life" from the Broadway musical "Annie," and a short film from the student film makers. On display were photos taken by the children in the City Hearts photography program. These photos were auctioned off at the event and will continue to be auctioned off through the City Hearts website: www.cityhearts.org, with 100% of the proceeds being donated to Operation USA to benefit tsunami victims.

"City Hearts provides a vital solution to our society's most devastating problems; crime and a lack of guidance for our youth," said City Hearts founder Sherry Jason. "As a successful program of prevention and intervention, City Hearts has impacted the lives of our students and their families. Our goal is to reach more children, keeping them away from dangerous activities and crime and helping them to become strong, contributing members of society. City Hearts relies on the generosity of community and corporate contributors and partners as well as individual donations."

About City Hearts

Founded in 1984 by criminal defense attorneys, Sherry and Bob Jason, City Hearts: Kids Say Yes to the Arts impacts the lives of over 1,200 at-risk children, ages 5 - 18, annually. City Hearts is committed to breaking the cycle of poverty, neglect and abuse that destroys the lives of our children with the goal to teach our community's at-greatest-risk children to be productive, creative, law-abiding members of society.

City Hearts is a non-profit organization that functions only with the generous support of donors. All classes are free to the children and are taught by an acclaimed faculty of trained actors, dancers, musicians and artists. For more information, call City Hearts at (310) 455-2898 or log onto www.cityhearts.org.