Center in the Square

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Center in the Square is vital to education in western and central Virginia. The programs offered by Center's organizations bring special opportunities to students whose schools have limited resources offering hands-on learning experiences that broaden students' understanding and address student's differing learning styles.

Center in the Square welcomes more than 400,000 visitors each year with nearly 200,000 children participating in hands-on educational experiences. Educators from 44-percent of Virginia's school systems rely on Center in the Square's organizations to help meet the Standards of Learning (SOL) requirements mandated by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and all agree that cultural and artistic activities are major components in encouraging the creative development, problem solving, and critical thinking skills essential to preparing students for the 21st-century workforce.

The in-house and outreach programs offered by Center's organizations enhance classroom instruction in science and the arts.

Students visiting Center in the Square have the benefit of exposure to multiple organizations within the context of one field trip. School systems save dollars on transportation expenses and get a maximum of experience for a minimum of classroom time missed.

Center and its beneficiary organizations serve a wide region that includes the New River Valley, Alleghany Highlands and the Roanoke Valley Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) - Virginia's largest MSA west of Richmond in the Commonwealth, and the only major urban center for education, shopping, social and medical services, and cultural offerings for approximately 750,000 people in the southern piedmont and western Virginia.