News Release    The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Audience Development Department

1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028-0198

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For Immediate Release

Contact: Donna Williams

Christine Larusso

The Metropolitan Museum of Art to Host “Who Mentored You to This Moment” Honoring Mentoring and Promoting Awareness of National Foster Care Month

Event Date:   May 15, 2010

Event Time:   7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

Reception Location: The Douglas Dillon Boardroom

Lecture Location:  The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Multicultural Audience Development Initiative will co-host, along with The Rowell Foster Children’s Positive Plan, “Who Mentored You To This Moment”: A Celebration of Mentors and Mentees Who Make a Difference on May 15, 2010 in honor of Mentorship and National Foster Care Month.  The event will highlight the lives of foster children and the mentors who inspired them and will include numerous special guests, honorees, performers, and current and former Museum mentees.

Mrs. Matilda Raffa Cuomo, former First Lady of New York and founder of

Mentoring USA/Italia, will be presented with the 2010 Mentoring Award; Arlene Goldsmith with the 2010 National Foster Care Awareness Leadership Award; and Shane Salter the 2010 National Advocacy Award.

Other special guests include Emmy-nominated actress Victoria Rowell, artist Alexander Smalls, and Misty Copeland, soloist with the American Ballet Theatre.

The event is free with Museum admission.

Since 2005, The Multicultural Audience Development Initiative and the Museum’s Education department have organized The Mentoring Program for College Juniors, an internship program designed to encourage college juniors from diverse backgrounds to pursue museum careers.

The Multicultural Audience Development Initiative began more than ten years ago at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It reflects the Museum's founding mission to educate and inspire by reaching out to all of its constituencies, including the many diverse communities of the Tristate area. Its objectives are to increase awareness of the Museum's encyclopedic collections and programs, to diversify its visitorship and Membership, and to increase participation in its activities.

Every May, National Foster Care Month highlights the visibility of the hundreds of thousands of children in foster care across the United States and celebrates the individuals and organizations working to support these children and their families throughout the year.  This year, nearly 30,000 young people in the United States will age out of foster care, most without the appropriate resources, family connections, skills or options they will need to live healthy adult lives.  Mentors can become, as evidenced by this event, the supportive and lasting presence in the lives of these young people, cheering them on, showing them how to reach for their dreams – and achieve them.

The mission of the Rowell Foster Children Positive Plan (RFCPP) is to support and enhance the physical, emotional, social and economic development of youth in foster/adoptive care.  Started by Emmy-nominated actress Victoria Rowell in 1990, RFCPP is a non-profit charitable organization offering scholarships to help children in foster care thrive through participation in fine arts classes, sports camps, and cultural enrichment activities.

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April 23, 2010

VISITOR INFORMATION

Hours

Fridays and Saturdays 9:30 a.m.–9:00 p.m.

Sundays, Tuesdays–Thursdays 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

Met Holiday Mondays in the Main Building:

September 7, October 12, December 28, 2009;

January 18, February 15, May 31, 2010 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.

Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT

All other Mondays closed; Jan. 1, Thanksgiving, and Dec. 25 closed

Recommended Admission

(Includes Main Building and The Cloisters Museum and Gardens on the Same Day)

Adults $20.00, seniors (65 and over) $15.00, students $10.00

Members and children under 12 accompanied by adult free

Advance tickets available at www.TicketWeb.com or 1–800–965–4827

For More Information (212) 535-7710; www.metmuseum.org

No extra charge for any exhibition.