Arts Advocate

WINDERMERE FOUNDATION

ARTS ADVOCATE

Broker Collette Lee knows how influential the arts can be for the young people in her community. BY HALEY SHAPLEY

ILLUSTRATION BY AMRITA MARINO

WHEN COLLETTE LEE was young, she went on a school field trip to see the ballet and symphony. “It was magical,” says Lee, co-owner of Windermere Tower Properties in Riverside, California. “I still remember it vividly.”

As one of 10 children, she didn’t have a lot of extra money to pursue activities, so the future broker began babysitting to save up for $12-a-month ballet classes. She calls her exposure to the arts life-changing.

In 2013, when she saw an article in the newspaper that a fledgling arts program known as the Eastside School of the Arts, serving 500 local children, was in danger of being cut due to funding, she wanted to find a way to help. Lee called a meeting with her son Brent and daughter Lauren (who make up Windermere Tower’s executive team), and they soon sprang into action, reaching out to several local groups to start a collaborative community initiative to save the program. They went to City

Hall and were told they had three months to raise $38,000. They succeeded.

Fast-forward to today, and the program is alive and well, now renamed Riverside Arts Academy and serving about 4,000 kids in four core disciplines: music, dance, performing arts, and visual arts.

“Research shows that if children have a very defined musical curriculum that involves four to five hours a week, it actually changes the brain chemistry and fine-tunes the brain so children can achieve academically at a much higher level,” Lee says. The various arts offerings, both during and outside of school, also teach discipline, improve self-esteem, inspire creativity, and help young people set and reach goals.

The academy receives some funding through the Windermere Foundation, which collects a portion of the proceeds from home sales and purchases to donate to projects that benefit low-income and homeless families. Windermere Tower agents also

get involved in various ways, such as helping behind the scenes at fundraisers. Realtor Freya Foley writes grants, and Jason Sparks has donated two pianos. For Lee, who’s now the president of the community board of directors that governs Riverside Arts Academy, it’s become like a part-time job—she starts working on it as early as 3 a.m. each day.

And while that’s a big commitment, it’s worth it for the woman who remembers what it was like to take that field trip as a little girl. “It just resonated with me, because I know how it changed my life to be exposed to the arts,” Lee says. “Sometimes that’s the only beauty that can sustain you.”

Since 1989, the Windermere Foundation has donated more than $38 million to non-profit organizations throughout the Western U.S. that support low-income and homeless families. Learn more at windermerefoundation.com.