The Fox Theatre Institute (FTI), a division of Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, Inc., has received a $25,000 donation from the AT&T Foundation to develop and implement a virtual version of its six-year-old Fox in a Box educational program. The free K-5 educational program focuses on how major events in the Fox Theatre’s history timeline intersect with key classroom lessons, from American History and the Civil Rights Movement to Economics and the importance of historic preservation, performing arts, and community building. Since launching the program in December 2014, Fox in a Box has visited over 29,000 elementary students and educators in the Atlanta area, including outlying metro counties.

The Fox Theatre Institute has been working to diversify educational offerings during this unprecedented time with school programming adapting in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. FTI plans to leverage funding from the AT&T Foundation to create and distribute a virtual version of its Fox in a Box school program to students in grades K-5 across the entire state of Georgia. Excitingly, FTI will be able to focus for the first time on as many Georgia schools as possible without geography being an obstacle.

“The very generous support of the AT&T Foundation could not have been shared at a more fortuitous time. This brand-new possibility of sharing the program virtually, and statewide, is a wonderful enhancement of our ongoing outreach efforts,” said Leigh Burns, Director of the Fox Theatre Institute. “In our twelve-year history working with partners across Georgia, we are thrilled to have the new collaboration with the AT&T Foundation and WarnerMedia. Their investment in educating Georgia’s children will make an enormous impact in the ever-changing learning options during COVID 19 and beyond.”

“At AT&T, the AT&T Foundation and WarnerMedia, one of our core values is to be there when people need us most,” said Venessa Harrison, president of AT&T Georgia. “AT&T and our WarnerMedia colleagues are proud to collaborate with the Fox Theatre Institute to be there for Georgia’s youth. Enhancing educational opportunities has never been more important, and we applaud the Fox Theatre Institute for channeling creativity to share the intersection of arts, history and culture in new ways.” 

The $25,000 AT&T Foundation donation is part of the relief support WarnerMedia, the AT&T Foundation and AT&T are providing in response to the global pandemic. More information on WarnerMedia’s efforts, including committing $100 million to those impacted by production pauses at WarnerMedia’s studios, can be found here. And, more information on AT&T’s efforts can be found here.

“These are challenging times for all of us, and especially so for students,” said Dr. Liss A. Maynard, Principal of Clarkdale Elementary School. “The Fox in a Box educational program, offered virtually amidst COVID, will help our teachers here at Clarkdale Elementary and across Georgia support our students in creative new ways – at a time when it is needed most.”

FTI also consists of Georgia Presenters, an innovative statewide talent booking consortium, and Preservation Grants to encourage preservation of historic theatres with outside funding not readily available elsewhere. 

For more information, please visit www.FoxTheatreInstitute.org.