Mission
Pepperell Community Arts (PCA) builds community and creates opportunities for artistic and personal growth by providing affordable, high quality programming in the arts. We are inclusive as we teach, collaborate, inspire, and give back to our town and surrounding areas.
Values
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Access & Belonging - We believe everyone deserves access to high quality arts programming as a way to explore our passions, abilities, humanity, and individuality. Everyone - children and adults - should have a supportive, welcoming environment for creative expression at every level of experience.
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Respect - We treat each member of our community with respect, professionalism, and decency in all interactions, and acknowledge that everyone brings unique and valuable intelligence, opinions, and experiences to our organization.
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Collaboration - We foster mutual support and shared responsibility in all aspects of what we do, knowing that our success depends on collective effort, and a wide range of talents given and received freely.
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Service - We believe in the power of the arts to bring people together. We operate with a generous mindset, and actively seek opportunities to give back to the community.
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Fun - We delight in creative work and celebrate joy in the process of artistic expression. We believe that growth, improvement, and fun are not mutually exclusive. We balance process-over-product, and progress-over-perfection.
Our Story
In 2014, PCA founder Stacey Thompson and her family moved to beautiful Pepperell, Massachusetts. The pristine natural beauty of Pepperell combined with warm, welcoming people and affordable housing made Pepperell the perfect fit. But something else attracted them as well. The strong music program in North Middlesex Regional School District meant they could continue their love of choir, band, and musical theater.
It was soon apparent that this region of small town America was bursting with an amazing natural resource: Artists! From singers to dancers, actors to instrumentalists, designers to artisans, there seemed to be no end to the ability, creativity, and yet humility of the people in the Pepperell Community.
As Stacey saw her kids interact with skilled musicians and artists of all types and ages, she learned that many of them travel out of town to perform and share their talents. Driving to Nashua, Groton, Littleton, or even Boston appeared to be the norm. But taking their talents out of town meant that local folks (who can't travel easily) were missing out on great performances. And those with young children or teens who wanted their kids to participate in performing groups had to drive quite a distance and pay big fees. In some cases, the cost was prohibitive for local families.
Contemplating these things, and pondering her own passion for arts, Stacey felt inspired to create a local non-profit entity for artists of all types based right in Pepperell, with surrounding towns whole-heartedly invited to join as well!
Thus, Pepperell Community Arts was born! Board meetings began at Pepperell Lawrence Library. Since then, PCA has added more programming and expanded our community of participants and volunteers so much. We're thrilled for what's to come. Keep in touch - email info@pepperellcommunityarts.org to get involved.