Mission 

Fern Street Community Arts serves families and transforms neighborhoods through performance and teaching of circus arts. Professional artists collaborate with learners and their families in neighborhood settings. Circus transcends barriers between people of varying cultures and languages, combines physical and theatrical skills, and merges the magnificent and the everyday.

Participants co-create every aspect of the Circus, using their own talents and available resources, working in public locations, creating visible community.

Practice

Through its principal project, Fern Street Circus, Fern Street Community Arts aims to create social change, neighborhood by neighborhood. Circus tradition transcends barriers between people of varying cultures and languages, combining physical and theatrical skills, merging the magnificent and the lowbrow, and is uniquely suited to be the medium of social exchange and social good. Circus combines art with sport, changing the way kids feel about exercise. Children, teens, and their families join together in a nurturing, portable, creative place for making friends, growing up and marking milestones through collective achievement.

Leadership & Board

John Highkin (Executive Director) is a circus impresario, educator, and musician, an arts leader with over 25 years of management experience.

Cindy Zimmerman (Co-Founder), a locally known visual artist and educator, has over 25 years of teaching experience.

Our Board of Directors are visionaries who understand non-profit governance and raise funds to drive the organization and help offer programs free-of-charge or at low cost for communities of need.