Our programs are centered around three areas: Education, Visual Arts, and Community Development.
Educational Programming
We provide visual arts education and general education to individuals, families, and interested groups. We do this through workshops, art camps, online classes, curriculum development, and artist-residencies in schools. We utilize volunteers, our employees, contractors, and professional artists, instructors, and educators to teach those we serve. These activities are conducted in schools, our various facilities, community centers/houses, recreation centers, parks, Live Coal Arts Mobile, churches/places of worship, businesses, and gardens. We fund this activity through grants, donations, and fees. This activity furthers our exempt purposes by providing low to no-cost education to those we serve, especially youth.
Visual Arts Programming
We exhibit, collect, promote, and sell the works of art created by artists of all ages and stages of life. We do this through our children’s art museum, partnering with other groups, online venues, and hosting special events. Artists who sell work receive a paid commission for the sale of their work. The remaining funds from art sales goes back into our organization’s operating budget and as a way to support this activity. We utilize volunteers, our employees, contractors, and professional artists for our Visual Arts Programming. This activity supports youth who are interested in becoming artists or youth wanting to learn how to develop professional skills. It helps individual artists interact with the public by displaying their works and share their works during public events and artist talks. It also gives individuals an opportunity to support our non-profit organization since we receive a commission from the sale of art. This promotes mutual support since we are supporting the artist by hosting, promoting, and selling their work. It also shows that our creative community wants to support our mission by agreeing to give a portion of sales back to the organization.
Creative Community Development
We address the needs our of our community by finding creative ways to improve, revitalize, and develop the neighborhoods we serve. We do this through nature-based programs and projects, artistic installations, community celebrations highlighting the arts, workshops and learning opportunities for interested individuals and groups, building and renovating structures intended for art and educational purposes such as community art houses within neighborhoods, seeking ways to improve our natural environment, keeping neighborhoods clean and safe, and hosting community meetings where people can share creative ideas and share concerns about their neighborhood and its development. We plant gardens and build creative play spaces, we create nature trails, and work with our volunteers, staff, and contractors to build arts-infused green spaces. This activity adds to the safety of our communities because it addresses issues such as blight, abandonment, illegal dumping, lack of direct arts exposure in our neighborhoods, brings educational experiences through nature, addresses issues surrounding equity because it elevates the particular areas we are revitalizing through the arts which is connected to property value. We utilize volunteers, our staff, our Live Coal Collective, other artists, makers, organizations, businesses, and contractors to do these activities.
