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In 2013, ArtReach, in partnership with Province of Ontario and the Betty Averbach Foundation, delivered the Cultural Careers Workshop series. This project consisted of workshops on the Business of Art and mentorship sessions for young artists in Toronto. The workshops supported 175 diverse young artists in gaining the knowledge, skills, networks and resources to further their cultural careers, with topics including Branding and Marketing, Selling Your Art, and How to Design a Pop Up Shop. On December 14th, 2013, our Cultural Careers project wrapped up with BAZAAR BAZAAR BAZAAR- curated and hosted by Miracle Thieves and Singhnature. This event was a pop-up market with an array of Toronto artists, including participants from the workshop series, selling all kinds of fashionable, hand-crafted one-of-a-kind goods. Talk about coming full circle. You can help invest in a young person’s full circle by donating to our $20 to 20 Campaign. Head to artreach.org/donate to learn how.

Art For The Soul: The Spiritual Benefits Of Creation Pablo Picasso famously stated that art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Truer words could not have been said. The beauty of art is for every person, everywhere, no matter their background. Art possesses transcendent qualities that heal the essential being, creating strength and harmony within the soul. Luckily, everyone can reap the benefits of art, even those who are otherwise not creatively gifted, or those who have been excluded elsewhere. Even the smallest creative element will help nurture the soul and create a healthier, well-rounded person. The act of creation has helped people move out of their current situation in the past and will continue to do so for the most determined. The Link Between Creativity and Spiritual Health Creative types have dabbled in religious symbolism for centuries because interpreting the word of a deity or deities brings spiritual satisfaction. At the same time, psychologists have used art to help improve the mental well-being of patients across many diagnoses. Most recently, art has helped soldiers returning from war zones, proving that art heals in all walks of life. Art therapy has been proven throughout history and continues to work today, as a pathway toward spiritual healing. For example, Paulina Okieffe was a struggling artist who used art to work for her community. She communicated with and for art, becoming a leader among other artists in her area. She used creativity to soothe her spirit, and it worked for her in her professional goals. Every walk of life will benefit spiritually through any type of creativity, from drawing to dancing, writing, or singing. This is a large reason why karaoke nights have become so popular among the working class - it is a creative outlet that helps otherwise logical people relax in a socially acceptable manner. Learning to Get Creative It is commonly believed that people fall into two categories: those who are creative, and those who are not. However, these lines are drawn in shifting sand before high tide. Those who believe they are not creative actually create every day through problem-solving, cracking jokes, making recipes, and more. The truth is that these activities simply aren’t viewed as being creative. Taking a step back and remembering that creativity happens in little ways every day will help every person learn how to tap into natural creativity. People must grant themselves permission to entertain creative outlets and try new creative outlets that will bring further spiritual healing, leading to mental health. Take an extra pottery class or group painting class for a healthy creative outlet. Remove the dust from the soul and give the spirit a reason to shine through creativity. Author: Jenny Holt

If ArtReach was your first granter, providing you with the funds, mentorship, and platform to turn your great ideas into reality and abling you to offer meaningful programming to youth in your community- You are our 300 grantees. If ArtReach provided you with free workshops, helping you build your skills and capacity to better run your organizations and projects- You are our 4000 workshop participants. If ArtReach awarded you with prize money through our annual Youth Arts Pitch Contest, launching your new business or supporting the development of your arts career- You are our 85 Pitch Contest winners. If ArtReach connected you with your City, highlighting learning opportunities, job postings, and local initiatives through our social media and bi-weekly newsletter, Post-It- You are our 10,000 resource users. If ArtReach invested in your community, funding projects and offering workshops to the underserved youth in your area who face barriers to accessing high-quality arts and education opportunities- You are our 500,000 community members. Since 2006, ArtReach has offered the tools, mentorship, and resources needed to support YOU- youth artists and community change-makers from across the City of Toronto. We want to keep doing our work in the most accessible, relevant, and highly-engaged way possible, but in order to do that, we need your help by donating to ArtReach today. When you donate to ArtReach, your donation goes right back to YOU because YOU are ArtReach too. Your donations ensure that ArtReach can continue to impact the lives of the thousands of youth and community members who access our resources, attend our workshops, receive our mentorship, and are supported by our funding program. Donate today to reinvest in YOU and young leaders just like you. _________________________________________________________________________ Please consider donating to ArtReach today at www.artreach.org/donate

2019 Grant Writing Workshop This interactive session will explore the basics of preparing a grant application for ArtReach’s upcoming 2019 deadline. It will break down the main components of our application, including the proposal, work plan and budget; and will provide tips for creating a clear and concise application. The workshop will run from 6:00-9:00pm, with a Q & A session from 8:30-9pm. DETAILS: Date: Thursday, January 17, 2019 Time: Networking and food at 5:30pm, workshop runs 6:00pm-9:00pm. Location: Toronto City Hall, Committee Room #3, 100 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5H 2N2 RSVP: https://bit.ly/2LCQyzW Facilitator: Paulina O’Kieffe, ArtReach Director, Artist, and Grant Writer Details: This workshop is for youth aged 13-29. Space for this workshop is limited so register today! Food and refreshments will be provided 2019 Grant Writing Clinics These clinics are an opportunity for individuals to have their applications read by a volunteer reviewer, with feedback provided. Each applicant (artist or group) may sign up for one, 30 minute slot. Please sign up for your timeslot HERE. There is no guarantee that a volunteer reviewer will be available to meet with you if you do not book an appointment. NOTE: Locations of the clinics vary by date. Be sure to check the location of the clinic before applying. This information is in the flyer below. NOTE: Food and refreshments will not be provided

“I knew I was taking a risk creating such a niche program- Black women/ femme mental health, arts and beauty for folks in the west side of the city, does anyone really care? But everything from the grant writing stage (which required lots of research), to outreach and eventually running the program confirmed to me that the need is there. This group of youth, we deserve spaces for us to process and heal collectively”. It is a cold November night when I step into the warm and inviting space just off Trethewey Road, nestled in the community of Black Creek. Four beautiful, black women are intensely engaged in two sets of photography shoots, and I'm told by program coordinator Tanya Turton that two of the women, program participants, are working on their final exhibit pieces. The creative energy is high, vibrating throughout the space as the participants adjust their photography subjects, make jokes, laugh, and indulge in their art-making process. Since July 2018, ArtReach grantee Tanya Turton has been running Adornment: Stories of Transformation, a space committed to prioritizing the healing of Black women and femme-identified black folks in the unique ways they relate to art, beauty, and wellness. The program explores storytelling in the forms of digital arts, media, writing, and body adornment for improved wellness, self-care, and healing. When asked where the idea for her program originated, Tanya tells us, “Adornment as a project was birthed from a workshop tour I did in Toronto, New York, and Detroit that focused on media, arts, and wellness. After having many conversations and hearing Black women and youth share similar pain, it sparked an idea in me to create a safe space in my own neighbourhood for healing and community-building. Our main goal was to build collective care that reminds people there is transformation in our stories.” From this initial idea, Adornment developed into a community of Black women and femme youth artists, educators, and change-makers with in-depth community artist experience who wished to cultivate a space for others like them to safely tell their stories. And through listening to the narratives of healing and growth that program participants have shared, it’s easy to see that Adornment is well on their way to achieving this goal. Tanya notes that, “youth in the program have expressed that it has helped them find ways to care for themselves and become confident. They started out questioning themselves and their skills, and each seemed a little isolated in their experiences. Many of them prior to the program were never exposed to professional equipment or a method to share their stories. However, since joining the program, youth have said that they now feel confident in identifying as artists, and are more assured and clear in their expression of self. We have all grown together and I can see the impacts of having a safe space”. Reflecting on next steps for the Adornment project, Tanya shares, “I believe the pilot project was successful in introducing the relationship between mental health, adornment, and digital storytelling within the lives of Black women. Our next step is to incorporate more digital skills and a facilitation certificate portion that allows the youth in our program to go into community and facilitate workshops, sharing the valuable information they have learned”. Tanya tells us that she had the idea for this program for five years before applying to ArtReach’s 2018 granting round, feeling unsure as to how to fund it or make it possible. She shares, “I am deeply grateful to ArtReach for believing in my vision and turning my idea into reality”. ArtReach is so proud to have funded this deeply impactful and much-needed project, and we can’t wait to see what magic comes next! Learn more about Tanya and the Adornment program at tanyaturton.com/adornmentstories

The National Youth Action Council (NYAC), a part of the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH), is a group of young Canadians working together on projects related to youth mental health. NYAC, in partnership with Workman Arts, first launched the pilot project “If You Ask Me” in 2017 as a part of the Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival. Through this project, young artists were invited to create short films inspired by their experience with mental illness. NYAC staff tell us that, “the success of the 2017 screening inspired us to continue and expand the program for the 2018 festival”. In 2018, with their first ArtReach grant in hand, the If You Ask Me project again participated in the Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival. However more than simply showcasing the films by youth, the NYAC team felt it was important to provide concrete mentorship opportunities where they would be able to positively impact young film makers and help them improve upon existing works or create new works. As a result, this year’s program offered professional training to 15 young artists as well as mentorship provided by experienced filmmakers through their collaboration with Workman Arts. And with such a strong program, it’s no surprise that all was well received by youth participants and community members alike. NYAC staff note that “we have had teachers reach out to us about bringing the films into their classrooms as a way to talk about mental health issues with their students. Those in attendance at the screening spoke highly of the films as well as how open and honest the filmmakers were in their work and in the post-show Q&A. Many youth who heard about the project were interested in learning more and becoming involved in the future”. The NYAC team also tells us that the program, “has impacted youth in a substantially positive way by providing valuable skills and opportunities for them to take their voices and their struggles, and address it through film. Ultimately, it provided the opportunity to empower voices and stories that would otherwise go left unsaid”. Through their ArtReach grant, the project’s only source of monetary support, NYAC was able to directly engage and train participants across Canada, hire artist-mentors, hire a youth coordinator to support the program, and connect with a larger group of youth organizers who were carrying out similar projects. Team members Joshua, Cara, and Erum also tell us that receiving this grant helped support their own professional development as project leaders, from developing skills in arts administration to program coordination to better understanding the role of mentor and all that this entails when working with young filmmakers. So what’s next for the If You Ask Me project? NYAC tells us that they, “would love to continue to run the program based off of its success. Continuing to offer mentorship for more youth and continued mentorship for youth who have participated in the past. If we are able to increase funding, we may be able to create more leadership positions where youth who have completed the program, can enter into mentorship roles and get paid for their support”. Learn more about the National Youth Action Council here!

Ryan Dela Cruz is a Filipino-born, Canadian-raised artist, educator, community changemaker, and two-time ArtReach grant recipient. Ryan has been funded by ArtReach for Bucc N Flvr, a Toronto-based dance collective that believes in utilizing dance to engage intergenerational dialogue, build learning capacity for the next generation youth, and further Toronto dance culture for social change. He is a currently a part-time youth coordinator for the City of Toronto Parks and Recreation department, artist for TDSBcreates, and a facilitator with Unity Charity.

Youth Arts Pitch Contest Winner, Community Arts Projects Category, 2017 Sage Lovell is a Deaf femme queer non-binary artist. Before moving to the Greater Toronto Area, Sage lived in Washington, DC, attending Gallaudet University, the only educational institution served to accommodate the needs of Deaf students in the world. There Sage studied both psychology and theatre and this experience transformed their life. Realizing that accessibility was more than 20+ years behind in Canada, Sage returned to their roots and focused on advocacy. In the past five years, Sage has worked with various communities in several capacities, developing meaningful work that continues to evolve. With Sage’s many talents, they were able to incorporate their passions of media, language, theatre, and accessibility into works of art. These multitude of experiences led Sage to become one of the co-founders of Deaf Spectrum, a collective established to promote the increase in usage of American Sign Language (ASL) in order to make community spaces more accessible and inclusive. When asked how winning the 2017 Youth Arts Pitch Contest has supported their career, Sage told us “the Pitch Contest has helped us to purchase studio items to produce better sign language videos with different backdrops, studio lighting, teleprompter, and a new camera. We've shown a significant growth in Deaf folks producing accessible sign language videos and we cannot wait to complete our art video projects this summer, 1) How to book ASL Interpreters, and 2) Technology's Impact on Deaf Community.” Sage notes that, “during the pitch contest, it was difficult being on my own, being the sole Deaf person knowing American Sign Language and not having access to spoken language. After I discovered that I won, I was relieved that my efforts was not for nothing”. Being ArtReach’s first deaf Pitch Contest participant presented itself with challenges, but ArtReach was grateful to have learned valuable lessons in accessibility, and how to accommodate the needs of deaf artists. When Sage isn’t winning pitch contests, they also work as a writer, actor, performance interpreter, and community facilitator. www.deafspectrum.com

In the summer of 2018, Lolita Richards facilitated her second ArtReach-funded iteration of Wee Bake, a workshop series serving youth in the West Hill area through the East Scarborough Storefront Community Centre, a free commercial kitchen space in Scarborough. Wee Bake is a unique program in that it combines the development of baking skills and basic financial education into fun activities for youth, two valuable skills that Lolita saw were not being taught in schools. The 2018 round of Wee Bake saw 25 young aspiring bakers, aged 14-17. Of these participants, almost half were from the previous time Wee Bake was run, illustrating the success of the program and enthusiasm of participants to get back in the kitchen with Lolita. But while most participants were eager to develop their skills and get baking, Lolita tells us that she “also had a couple of returning participants who in the beginning didn’t take the program very seriously, but by the end of the 8 weeks, were really focused on creating a beautiful cake with decorations that they had baked on their own at home”. She shares that, “it was nice to see them grow in that way”. In reflecting on the impact Wee Bake has had on youth participants in the community, Lolita notes that, “a lot of the program participants have discovered their passion through baking". A returning participant even expressed to Lolita that "through the Wee Bake program, I was able to realize my passion for baking and now know what I'd like to do once I complete high school. I've even already started making cakes for family gatherings!". Lolita notes that, "it’s great to be able to find something you are passionate about at an early age because you can take that passion and make it into a career". Helping turn passions into careers is exactly what ArtReach grants are meant to do. As a funder, we're here to provide the opportunity for community change-makers to develop both their skills as a project leader and an artist in the hopes that they’re able to establish themselves in the youth arts sector. Lolita told us that “leading this project has supported my individual skills as a leader by helping me to gain new valuable skills like budgeting, as well as honing in on some strengths. I am now more confident in my grant writing skills, teaching/ facilitation style, and project management abilities.” When asked what was next for Wee Bake, Lolita said, “I see the program expanding. For the third year of the program, I intend to have access to the kitchen for a longer period of time, and hope to bring in more industry experts to run workshops in subjects like vegan baking and financial literacy. My ultimate goal is to raise funds in order to facilitate Wee Bake throughout the school year, as well as obtain contracts from local schools to operate Wee Bake on a long term basis.” From the large number of youth who expressed the hope that programing would continue throughout the year, to staff and community members at East Scarborough Storefront consistently gathering after sessions hoping there would be enough baked goods to share, it’s easy to see that Wee Bake is a program vital to the youth and community in the West Hill neighbourhood. Learn more at instagram.com/madebymoi_desserts

To our Friends, Service Users, and Community Members, GivingTuesday is a global movement for giving and volunteering, taking place each year after Black Friday. The “Opening day of the giving season,” it’s a time when charities, companies and individuals join together and rally for favourite causes. In the same way that retailers take part in Black Friday, the giving community comes together for GivingTuesday. GivingTuesday harnesses the generosity of people around the world to bring about real change in their communities; it provides a platform for them to encourage the donation of time, resources and talents to address local challenges. It also brings together the collective power of a unique blend of partners - nonprofits, civic organizations, businesses and corporations, as well as families and individuals - to encourage and amplify small acts of kindness. Across Canada and around the world, GivingTuesday unites communities by sharing our capacity to care for and empower one another. You can see ArtReach’s GivingTuesday profile here. We hope you consider giving to ArtReach on this #GivingTuesday2018. www.artreach.org/donate

Are you a young artist or youth organizer? Have you been thinking about applying for funding for your projects but unsure of where to start? In this session we will dive into the basics of preparing a clear, concise, and effective grant application. We will break down and explore the main components of an application including the proposal, work plan and budget; sharing tips on how to create a strong application that will also be useful to you in implementing your project. Our facilitator will share strategies for identifying appropriate grants, building relationships with funders, and streamlining the writing process. All participants will also receive a digital resource of youth and arts funders. DETAILS: Date: Thursday, December 13th, 2018 Time: Networking and food at 5:30pm, workshop runs 6:00pm-9:00pm. Location: Toronto City Hall, Committee Room #3, 100 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5H 2N2 RSVP: https://bit.ly/2KwvF9m Facilitators: Paulina O'Kieffe, ArtReach Director, Artist, and Grant Writer Details: This workshop is for youth aged 13-29. Space for this workshop is limited so register today! Food and refreshments will be provided

Taking care of yourself allows you to enjoy time with others while also sustaining yourself. Self-care is not selfish. It is being intentional in your day to reflect, nurture your body, remember your heart, grieve your sorrows, and attend to your daily needs. Self-care is an invaluable, but often overlooked, part of the work we do in our communities. This workshop is designed for young people who want to develop personal strategies for taking care of themselves and their peers when running projects in their communities. Burning out; carrying and not addressing trauma; allowing our work lives to bleed over into our personal – too many of us accept these as inevitable. In this interactive session, we will challenge these notions by exploring better ways we can take care of ourselves (and in doing so, be able to best support our communities). Facilitators will share stories, tips, and both personal and general interactive strategies regarding how we can best do this important work. DETAILS: Date: Monday, November 19th, 2018 Time: Networking and food at 5:30pm, workshop runs 6:00pm-9:00pm. Location: Sketch Working Arts, 180 Shaw Street, Lower Level, Toronto Facilitator: Nerissa Bradley, Multi-Disciplinary Artist, Entrepreneur, Coach RSVP: https://bit.ly/2pMa1Eq Details: This workshop is for youth aged 13-29. Space for this workshop is limited so register today! Food and refreshments will be provided This workshop is part of the 2018 Emergence Symposium, and is presented in partnership with: A portion of this workshop's refreshments have been generously donated by:

Are you running a project or program in your community? Do you want to better understand the reasons for and basics of evaluating your program? Wondering about the best ways to plan your evaluation activities to generate statistics and feedback about the effectiveness and success of your work? Evaluation is an important, but sometimes overlooked part of our work in communities. Surveys, stories, art-based activities, and statistics are just some of the powerful evaluation tools we can use to measure the impacts of what we do. Used correctly, they demonstrate the benefits of our work to our communities, funders, and donors and help us better shape our programs into the future. In this interactive workshop we will examine the process of evaluation and report writing, and explore creative strategies and tools for collecting the right data and sharing it with others and also demonstrate step by step how to use them to develop an evaluation plan. Workshop participants will look into different ways of measuring the impacts and successes of their own programs using strategies which include theory of change, and using outcomes, outputs and indicators, all while learning to create effective evaluation tools. DETAILS RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/evaluation-101-workshop-tickets-51260762320 Date: Tuesday, October 30, 2018 Time: Food and registration at 5:30pm, workshop runs 6:00pm-9:00pm Facilitator: Fiona Scott- independent research and evaluation consultant Location: Stolen From Africa Office, Monsignor Fraser College, 2900 Midland Avenue, Youth Space (Gray Building) Note: This workshop is open to youth (13 to 29 yrs). Space for this workshop is limited so register today! Food and refreshments will be provided. This workshop is presented in partnership with:

What happens when you give recent high school and university grads the opportunity to teach a media course? You get to witness the world of young people who live in Parkdale through short films of their own stories. This is the power of the City Shorts program. Mentored by independent filmmaker, Jordan McTavish, three young recent graduates took the lead in designing and facilitating free workshops on practical documentary production for under-served, new-arrival youth from the Parkdale community. The workshop series ran for six weeks during July and August 2018, with youth participants building skills in writing, directing and featuring in a short documentary about their life in Toronto and quintessential Toronto experiences. The documentaries were presented to parents and community members at a gala screening on Saturday August 25th at Back Lane Studios, and are now hosted online (check them out here!). The program originated when Jordan, who teaches at Back Lane Studios and has previous experience in the film industry, was guest teaching at a high school. Here he met Michael O’Meara, a 17 year old high school student who Jordan says was, “the kid who who was actually listening and taking in the information” and was really keen on learning more about film and the industry. When the opportunity to apply for an ArtReach grant came along, Jordan approached Michael to co-create a program that would support access to film training for youth in the community. “We talked about where the catchment would be and what kinds of youth we could outreach to,” Jordan explains. They both decided that they wanted to work with at-risk, newcomer youth in the Parkdale community, giving participants an opportunity to access free training and “opening up the potential of Back Lane studios’ equipment, space and teachers to a demographic who might not be able to afford their workshops in any other way,” notes Jordan. Jordan and Michael eventually recruited Kat and James, recent university grads with the knowledge and skills to support the programs facilitation. Thus the City Shorts Program was born. The program saw 8-10 youth participants, many of them representing the Filipino community. Jordan notes how the start of the program was a bit of a challenge, “on the first day there were only 3 kids who came together and none of them wanted to come back, but their parents made them,” he says with a smile. However when they came back for the second session and got to play around with the technology and go out on location to learn different filming techniques- their interest and commitment increased. “The youth participants became motivated to do their best research, and really think about their shots and shooting locations, and with their final product, were able to tell a really logical and well done story,” says Jordan proudly. According to Jordan, ArtReach was this project’s first funder. When asked what that meant for this project, he says, “this would not have been possible without ArtReach.” ArtReach funds offered the opportunity for youth leaders to be paid for the development and facilitation of the work while getting mentored by Jordan. It also allowed for the rental of Back Lane Studios space, which gave the program an accessible location and use of their technology. In addition to the financial support, the mentorship from ArtReach staff was also an integral part of this project. As Jordan notes, “communication and support was key in the program’s success and also gave us the motivation to build this program knowing that ArtReach was there for us. It really motivates me to increase the capacity and potential of this program,” Jordan says. ArtReach believes in the power of building capacity in addition to the funding for a truly successful program outcome, and the City Shorts program is a great example of this.

Beginning in February 2018, the San Romanoway Revitalization Association team members Arielle Prescod and Stephanie Payne began running the Can-Caribbean Dance Tour project. Arielle worked with 4 youth to develop the summer programming portion of the programming, which consisted of a 6 week dance intensive, and lead 30 youth participants through socially-conscious performing arts workshops that culminated in a community performance in conjunction with their summer camp final community event. When asked how the idea for the project originated, Arielle said that she had been working with San Romanoway Revitalization Association as a grant writer, but she had a passion and love for dance and was looking for a way to pass that on to the youth. “I wanted to show them how to build their own dance program and engage the younger kids they were working with through dance,” she said. The dance intensive was organized as a “tour of the Caribbean”, with workshops themed by islands such as Trinidad, Guyana, St. Vincent, and Jamaica. Corresponding activities included Soca choreography workshops, a dancehall workshop, a hip hop workshop St. Vincent style, and more. With the majority of the youth being of Caribbean descent it was a natural fit that the first round of the project would be focused around cultural dances from those regions. Over the course of the intensive, Arielle and the older youth program leads worked to support the younger youth to build up their skills, but also their confidence, often times encouraging them to co-lead dance sessions with them, and taking on some solo leads. A final workshop was held at the larger end-of-camp celebration, where program participants had the chance to show off their dance moves, inviting parents and elders to join in – which they happily did! “The parents enjoyed it when they saw their kids engaging and wanted to dance with us; even to see the older seniors dance with us at the BBQ was great,” notes Arielle. Though it was a youth program, it certainly had the magic to engage intergenerational learning and sharing. Arielle notes that the response to the program was extremely positive, with parents and community elders being grateful to the program for highlighting cultural dance. Many of them commented that rarely do programs focus on dances from genres such as Soca or Dancehall. “They thought it was going to be another all hip hop dance program, which we did incorporate, but it wasn’t the main component,” Arielle tells us. This unique feature has also led to community partners including Yorkwoods Library, Jane and Finch Family Centre, Black Creek Community Health Centre and Regent Park Music School reaching out to Arielle and the young people leading the project to collaborate on workshops with them. Arielle is currently working with the youth to evaluate the project and analyze the impact it has had on the youth and community at large. She notes that one of the biggest changes it has made was being able to pay the youth dance instructors for coming in to facilitate. “They were very surprised to be paid for their time and their art,” says Arielle. Although the program received a lot of in kind support from project partners, ArtReach was the only funder of Can-Caribbean Dance Tour. Arielle states that ArtReach funding helped to make everything possible, especially the idea that they could run this project on their own. “Working in that space we are usually told what programming we will be doing, but having the funding from ArtReach gave the youth control on how they spent their summer and what programming we could do,” Arielle says proudly. Youth taking a lead in this kind of decision making is definitely what ArtReach is all about, and this project shows that with a little investment, you can make a lot of change. A personal change for Arielle was improving her project management skills and learning how to be flexible. “Even though the activities weren’t exactly how I had planned it,” she explains, “I was able to keep pushing forward and adjusting my plans.” The Can-Caribbean Dance Tour is working to expand its programming, hopefully bringing in elements of traditional African dance, expanding the cultural food (which the youth took the lead in preparing), and adding intentional space for self-care practices. We at ArtReach can’t wait to see what this program does in the future. Learn more about the San Romanoway Revitalization Association here.