GENERAL INFO

Artspace recognizes the need and opportunity to support the positive growth of the neighborhood in which we have been a part for the past 20 years. The Artspace Outreach Program began in the fall of 2001 to fill the community's need for constructive opportunities for Raleigh's young. Artspace believes that the arts can change lives, brighten the future of promising children, and build the self-esteem of students who might falter.

The program began through a partnership with the Salvation Army after-school program and the Saturday programs at the Girls Club of Raleigh. Focusing on Secondary and Middle School aged youth, the program provides intensive, project-oriented, art classes designed to help youth break the cycle of low self-esteem. Through partnerships with social service organizations, Artspace provides safe, engaging, and constructive environments for young people who lack adult supervision during non-school hours, a time when they are most vulnerable to delinquent behavior.

The Artspace Outreach Program aims to spark the imagination of Raleigh's youth. Goals of the program include: providing an environment that encourages the participants to explore themselves and their world through art, and to encourage artistic expression beyond the length of the program; building the process of skill development and self-discovery that liberates each participants creativity, thus boosting self-esteem; helping children to feel that they add value to the community; emphasizing alternative methods of communicating; and giving the children a voice in the community through the exhibition and presentation of their ideas.

Over the past two years, more than nine large-scale projects have been completed with youths from the Salvation Army, the Raleigh Girls Club, Pan Lutheran Ministries, the Raleigh Rescue Mission, Heritage Park Community Learning Center, and Hope Elementary Charter School. Funding for these programs has been provided by Target, The Fenwick Foundation, Kimley-Horn Foundation, the Junior League of Raleigh, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the United Arts Council of Raleigh & Wake County.