Local Musician Nancy Atlas Launches Atlas for the Arts, a Nonprofit

Three years ago, local musician Nancy Atlas started passing around a bucket at her shows, looking for donations that could help her enrich the lives of young and aspiring musicians at local schools.

Just last week, Atlas formalized her charitable efforts, launching an official nonprofit called Atlas for the Arts that will support young musicians on the East End.

“The East End has always been a mecca for the arts, throughout generations and generations, and I think it’s incredibly important to have the conversation about nurturing our younger children so that they can continue to carry the torch,” she said.

The idea began at the Surf Lodge, where Atlas does a weekly show on Wednesdays in the summer. She and other parents began raising money for school programs, and Atlas would pass a bucket around at her shows. When she made Atlas for the Arts official last week, the nonprofit quickly raised $55,000 in just three days.

“There aren’t a ton of opportunities for our younger kids to get excited about, so we’re going to be creating them,” Atlas said.

Ultimately, the goal is to have a mentorship program that would boost the vibrant artistic community in the area, but for the moment Atlas plans to continue her fundraising efforts.

Atlas described the past three years as a grassroots effort that has since blossomed into a full nonprofit.

“It’s been a very organic, natural progression of three years of grassroots funding, and it was time to grow up and become a proper nonprofit,” she said.

For the past two years, the efforts of Atlas and other parents helped raise money for students in the jazz band to join their peers in the Kiwanis Club and go to Hershey Park — something music teachers had long wanted to see happen.

“That might seem like a very little thing, but if you can get kids excited about anything other than their phones right now, that is a complete win,” she said.

“It’s to help get these kids performing and help the teachers excite them with the programs that they’ve dreamed of always having,” she said. “It’s also to create relationships with the living and breathing professional musicians and artists and actors on the East End.”