History |Current Status and Future| Mission | Policies
The organization that is now ECCA began as one class of five-year old Phillips Exeter Academy children taught by artist Ellie Kirkpatrick on the third floor of the Davis Student Center on the PEA campus in 1991. Ellie taught at the Currier Gallery School in Manchester and began a Currier sponsored satellite program at the American Independence Museum (A.I.M.) in Exeter in 1992. A success from the start, the program was then adopted by the American Independence Museum in 1994 and called The Art Center at Folsom Tavern since the classes were held in the museum’s historic tavern.
The program at A.I.M. was awarded a $2500 start-up grant by the Greater Piscataqua Community Foundation and started the fall of 1994 with 116 students and three teachers. In 1995 the museum board voted to discontinue the Art Center program finding the program incompatible with the museum’s mission. Due to the community demand for an art program, over fifty members of the seacoast community formed the organization called ECCA with Ellie Kirkpatrick as Executive Director and a nine-member volunteer Board of Directors.
On May 24, 1996 ECCA incorporated as a New Hampshire non-profit corporation and was granted 501(c) 3 status by the IRS. The following August ECCA relocated to 131 Court Street, formerly Exeter Health Care, which was owned by the Exeter School System. In 1997 ECCA contracted 11 teachers offering 76 courses over three trimesters to 468 students ranging in age from 4 - 96.
In 1998 ECCA realized the retirement of its founder, Ellie Kirkpatrick, and the need to relocate. The board and community volunteers, who were committed to a local art center, responded to the challenge by hiring a new director and implementing a capital campaign to raise funds for to purchase a building for ECCA. With support from community members and foundations, such as The Fuller Foundation and Winthrop Corporation, along with financing from Citizens Bank and the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, ECCA purchased 52 Lincoln Street in Exeter.
Realizing the need for more space to expand its program, ECCA sold the 52 Lincoln Street Building May 2006 and moved its program into the Tuck Learning Campus, formerly the Exeter High School. ECCA is working with the Squamscott Community Commons or SCC toward the realization of a community center and intends to relocate into the building. SCC is a community center and YMCA to be built on Linden Street in Exeter abutting the new Little River Nature Preserve. http://www.squamscott.org
ECCA’s mission is to provide high quality arts education and resources for people of all ages and abilities in the community, to uplift and enhance lives through art education, to encourage excellence at every skill level, and to promote community awareness and appreciation of the arts.
Registration forms and full tuition are required to reserve a space in any ECCA program.
Financial aid is based upon need and is available through ECCA's scholarship fund. Please contact ECCA to inquire.
Refunds are not available unless ECCA cancels a class.
Inclement weather cancellations mirror those of SAU16.
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