Miss Atlantic County Organizing Arts Program For Young Students

Upon winning Miss Atlantic County in October 2010, Absegami High School senior Cierra Kaler-Jones set out to share her love for the performing arts with others.

The young Galloway resident is organizing a four-week arts program, which will offer free art lessons in dance, acting, singing and visual arts for young students.

The workshop will be held on Saturdays from March 19 to April 9 at Kinetic Poetic Dance in Galloway.

According to Kaler-Jones, the end-goal of the program will be to put together a show featuring the participants performing the art form of their choice.

Kaler-Jones has been dancing for 12 years and joined the Kinetic Poetic Dance Company in August 2010.

“The arts have really touched my life,” she said.

Kaler Jones’ arts program began to take shape last year when she approached the Board of Education about her concern regarding Gov. Chris Christie’s budget cuts. 

The cutbacks in education, she argued, would deprive many students of exposure to art thereby limiting their true academic potential.

“The arts teach you a lot of fundamental skills,” said Kaler-Jones. “I wanted to find another alternative for kids to turn to.”

“My plan is to [bring] the community together to advocate arts education,” she added.

Kaler-Jones hopes to continue to use her success in pageants as a platform to launch larger arts education programs in the future.

“[Dance] gave me something to be passionate about,” she said.  “Not everybody’s a scholar, not everybody’s an athlete […] the arts is somewhere where people can thrive.”

Kaler-Jones will be attending college next year and intends to double major in dance and pre-law.

Kaler-Jones has been accepted to both Montclair State University and Rutgers University.