From the Fire to the Fire Station

About the Program

Category: Arts, Culture and Historic Preservation (Best in Category)

Year: 2013

“Never let a good crisis go to waste!” Those were the defining words of a team of leaders who gathered together on August 25, 2009, at 4:00 am, as we watched a cruel fire – set by an arsonist at the Shreveport Regional Arts Council (SRAC) - burn the 16,000 sq. foot “center for Arts Administration, Creation, Rehearsal, and Presentation” to the ground. Nothing was left…not one relic was saved in the destruction. As the fire blazed on, Shreveport Mayor Cedric B. Glover, Caddo Parish Administrator Woody Wilson, and several Caddo Parish Commissioners joined hands with board members, staff, artists, and friends of SRAC as a new flame was lit in the hearts and minds of the group: This crisis must prove a new day for Arts growth…we must move beyond recovery and into a renaissance of Arts and Community Development. Two and a half years later, with leadership from the Caddo Parish Commission, we have moved the Shreveport Regional Arts Council From the Fire to the Central Fire Station, from the bulldozers squelching flames to bulldozers plowing fertile ground to create a Greenspace, and from the devastation to the renaissance!