Project Youth ArtReach (PYA) promotes positive youth development by providing juvenile offenders in detention, corrections, and probation settings with arts programs taught by master artists to enhance youth’s cognitive, linguistic, social, and civic development. As youth engage with a diverse group of professional artists, they acquire skills in visual, literary, and performing arts. By exploring themes of respect and values from other cultures, youth learn lessons in tolerance, problem solving, and conflict resolution.

Launched in 2000, PYA programs reach upwards of 2,500 youth per year at several sites in Maryland. Professional artists lead 16 – 18 workshops per week, including classes in ceramics, painting, mixed media, drumming, poetry, storytelling, guitar and dance. A series of workshops often culminates in youth poetry readings, donation of artwork to the community (e.g., murals installed in public places) or drumming demonstrations.

Donate to PYA

By giving to Project Youth ArtReach you support positive youth development for our community’s most disaffected youth. You also help youthful offenders build the life and work skills they need once returned to their homes and communities. Youth, who learn to channel their emotions through creative self-expression, have a better chance of living a productive and fulfilling life. Furthermore, Project Youth ArtReach contributes to the community with donated artwork to government and community organizations. Your contribution will have a multiplier effect: serving the needs of court-involved youth and creating art the entire community can enjoy.

Funding for Project Youth ArtReach provided by:

Maryland Department of Juvenile Services
National Endowment for the Arts
Maryland State Arts Council
Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County
The Choice Program of the Shriver Center at UMBC
United Way of the National Capital Region
Corina Higginson Trust
Montgomery County Correctional Facility
Sharing Montgomery Fund
Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation
Wells Fargo Cultural Excellence Grant

Contact Us

Phone: 301-588-7525
Fax: 301-588-1618
info@goartivate.org

Street Address:
8455 Colesville Road, Suite 202
Silver Spring MD 20910

Mailing Address:
PO Box 11242
Takoma Park, MD 20913

Request a Program

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VISION

Professional artists enriching and inspiring every community through culturally diverse arts experiences.

MISSION

Artivate connects artists and communities in order to facilitate engaging, educational, and inspiring arts experiences for all. We partner with professional artists representing a wide range of artistic disciplines and cultural traditions to provide high quality, interactive programs for schools, libraries, theaters, detention centers, and other community sites across Maryland, the District of Columbia, and northern Virginia.

HISTORY

Artivate was established in 1995 as Class Acts Arts, the educational outreach arm of the Institute of Musical Traditions, a Maryland non-profit focused on presenting concerts which preserve and promote American and international folk traditions. Founded by community arts activist, Busy Graham, Class Acts Arts served roughly 25,000 students and teachers with 80 school programs that first year, working with seven touring artists: dancers, storytellers and musicians. Now 25 years later, Artivate facilitates an average of 1,300 programs a year, reaching more than 200,000 children, teens and families at 250 sites across the Greater Washington, DC area, providing programs for libraries, community organizations, local theaters, town festivals, and correctional facilities, as well as schools. Designed in response to a demand for high quality, ethnically diverse cultural arts programs in schools, our roster has expanded to over 32 solo or ensemble artists, one-third of whom tour nationally, and now includes theater and visual arts. Many of the artists embody their cultural heritage, including artists from Argentina, Ecuador, India, Egypt, Ghana, Ukraine, and Quebec. In addition to our partnerships with dozens of professional artists and public and private schools, we collaborate with other arts education organizations and presenters such as Smithsonian Associates, Wolf Trap National Park for Performing Arts, Hylton Performing Arts Center, M-NCPPC’s Publick Playhouse, and other local theaters to develop programming and supplement tours.

In 2000, founder Graham designed and launched Project Youth ArtReach (PYA). Initially created to address the benefit of expressive outlets for incarcerated youth, PYA has grown from one detention site with only a handful of workshops to more than 300 programs per year at some six sites annually, and now engages detained men and women as well as teens. In addition to educational workshops in visual, literary and performing arts, we provide a variety of performances (20-25 per year) for larger groups inside some detention sites. Working with the Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation, the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, and The Choice Program of the Shriver Center at UMBC, Project Youth ArtReach has received local and national recognition for its excellent curriculum and meaningful impact.